— cognitive dissonance, value of humans, adaptable to change …

Speaker: Cathy Simpson
Meeting Date: Thursday, April 2, 2015
Time: 6:00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm sandwich dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: AMD Commons Building / AMD Campus, Sunnyvale
Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.

Presentation: Agile In Context
Tonight’s talk will be a fun romp through cognitive dissonance and the truth that stares in face, but somehow eludes us.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

So almost everyone agrees that being “most adaptable to change” is important in the abstract. Many of the same people believe that –

“We’re entering an age of acceleration. The models underlying society at every level, which are largely based on a linear model of change, are going to have to be redefined. Because of the explosive power of exponential growth, the 21st century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of progress; organizations have to be able to redefine themselves at a faster and faster pace” – Ray Kurtweil.

So at all levels of engineering, we will need for some time, a management methodology which is “most adaptable to change”. But when we ask people to vote their values, we seem to be in a world where many disrespect Agile Methodologies as the new buzz word. Many find it easy to classify Agile as a soon be superseded fad. Agile is disrespected, while nothing better is proposed. In this talk, we will address the meat of agile that will endure beyond the fad. We will address Agile in context. Everything that is old is new again; and some part of Agility is re-discovering the value of humans. Perhaps you will realize that you were Agile all along, but just didn’t have the context to know it.

Audience participation is encouraged.

Bio:
Catherine Simpson is a scrum trainer, agile coach, and Certified Scrum Professional with a passion for transforming the world of work to be more productive, creative and fun.

Catherine combines a warm energetic style with insights learned in the trenches at companies ranging from large financial institutions to small start-ups. This enables her to effectively connect with individuals, teams and managers in order to facilitate transformation.

In her career, Catherine has worn a number of hats, including software developer, technology manager, scrum master, project and program manager, consultant, agile coach, scrum trainer and camp counselor.