Recap: Keep Austin Agile 2014

Written By Allison Pollard

Photo by Agile Austin

I was pleasantly surprised by the size and enthusiasm of the Austin agile community!  The conference was sold out with 500 people registered.  Cherie Silas and I co-presented Beyond Removing Impediments: Scrum Master as Team Coach to an engaged audience of about 100 people in the morning, and it was a great start to the day.  The ideas from our session seemed to really resonate with folks, and I heard the ideas repeated in other sessions and conversations throughout the day.   

I was also very excited to have a good-sized group from Dallas attend Keep Austin Agile—many who had never been to an agile conference before.   They were excited to be a part of the larger agile community and discover that others faced many of the same challenges as them.  Best of all, they were reminded of the successes they had achieved thus far in their agile journeys.  The conference presented them with new ideas and reinvigorated their enthusiasm for agile.  Our group went out to dinner after the conference at the Oasis and had a lovely view of the sunset—it was a perfect ending to a wonderful agile conference trip.

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
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