Chicago Agile Open Space

About Chicago Agile Open Space 2.0

Founded in March 2012 as a practitioner-driven agile community, arranged around these Special Interest Groups (SIGs):

• Software Crafting
Practices like test-driven development and pair programming have gained much wider acceptance in recent years.  Engineering leaders are understanding the economics of software development in a different way, and these once controversial practices are increasingly sought after.  We will present topics and discussions exploring the growing valuation of craft in software development.

• Diversity and Inclusion
Regarding the topic of Inclusion & Diversity, we are trying to show the connection between Inclusion & Diversity initiatives that are sprouting in the technology field and team-building practices and mindsets. When we say diversity, we need to broaden the term “diversity” to include ethnicity, age, gender, educational background, and professional experience.  

• Product Thinking
Product Thinking suggests focusing on outcomes that maximize success for our customers. Realizing that the things that make a product good are the result of customers seeing, trying, and using the product. Since all of these things occur after the product ships, one should think in terms of Product Use and not Product Delivery. The Product Thinking SIG will focus on insights for knowing your customers and knowing their experiences with your product.  

• Culture and Environment
When the culture and environment of an organization are conducive to the agile precepts of self-organization, learning experiments, and objective accountability, value flows easily to customers.  Agile companies achieve accelerated, nearly effortless delivery of useful products and continual improvement in workflow, enhancing the bottom line.  
OBJECTIVE: How can these precepts be created and sustained within modern corporations?  This SIG proposes to explore the elements which help organically cultivate sustainable, adaptable, profitable businesses, and how to encourage those elements to enable organizations to benefit.

• Women in Agile 
Jointly sponsored by Women In Agile (https://WomenInAgile.org) and Chicago Agile Open Space, each year we invite Five Women to deliver “TED-like” talks on their journey into technology.

• Beyond agile 
With the signing of the Agile Manifesto approaching its 20-year anniversary, the Chicago Agile Open Space (CAOS) looks forward to hearing from engaging speakers in 2020 who are looking beyond Agile. What does going beyond look like when today’s agile is simply practiced intrinsically or perhaps altogether obsolete? If you are one of those free-spirited folks who think that agile is dead and should be replaced with something better, we would love to hear from you.

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