I’m very excited to announce the #WomenInAgile workshop – The Changing Face of Agile at Agile2016 in Atlanta, GA this summer! This is an event long in the making, started by great women who came before me and hopefully will be continued by other strong women’s voices in the future until the event is no longer needed.
Isn’t the Internet great? It’s a gateway to find information and promote yourself and your business. It’s also a great portal for cyber bullies and trolls to hide behind and unhinge the aforementioned business building. As with everything though, there is never a positive without a negative and it’s really what can be learned and how to move forward.
As some of you know, I am completing my Master of Art in Organizational Leadership concentrating in Strategic Management this semester. As part of my graduation requirements, I need to complete a leadership action project. I chose a project to understand why women are less involved in the Agile community than men.
I conducted interviews with seven women to discuss the issue and based on their responses came up with some key themes. I am using a survey to validate these themes and potentially gather new themes around why people are involved and why women are less involved. You can help by taking the survey and passing it on to your Agile counterparts. Men’s input is welcome, too!
There are many articles out there that talk about the importance of having a mentor, especially for women. Sheryl Sandberg discusses it in Lean In. Companies have mentoring programs for new employees, employees who have been there for awhile, and veteran employees. There is co-mentorship, reverse mentorship, peer mentorship, executive mentorship and every type of mentorship in between – but what we’re missing is sponsorship.
A rant about estimates, #noEstimates, relative estimating, story points, ideal days. You might learn something or more likely will just be mildly entertained. What else did you expect for a return from a 6+ month hiatus? Oh and also a sneak peak into my research project and how YOU can get involved — check back in March.
