Agile Denver

Agile & Lean Leaders:
We are a peer community of senior technology leaders—spanning product, operations, agile coaching, and engineering leadership—who seek to learn, grow, and exchange ideas beyond our day-to-day environments. Our members are Directors to C-level, all leading technology and software teams in complex, fast-moving organizations who value people over things.
As Agile & Lean Leaders, we embrace both meanings of the term:

• Leaders who apply Agile and Lean principles to guide teams and organizations through change with adaptability, efficiency, and continuous improvement.
• Leaders who shape the future of Agile & Lean leadership itself—mentors, thought leaders, and contributors to the evolving body of knowledge.

Our purpose is to:

• Connect with other senior technology leaders who navigate similar strategic and executive challenges.
• Learn from diverse perspectives—drawing on Agile, Lean, and other leadership models to tackle the real-world problems we face.
• Advance leadership thinking by developing, sharing, and potentially publishing new insights and strategies.
• Support each other as mindful, intentional professionals, leading with knowledge, calm, and clarity in high-stakes environments.
• Explore Lean principles alongside Agile to drive efficiency, eliminate waste, and improve flow in technology-driven organizations.

In Person Event:
6400 S Fiddlers Green Cir
Second Floor, Telluride Conference Room
Greenwood Village CO 80111

From Invisible to Indispensable: 4 Strategies for High Performers Who Are Done Being Overlooked

Description:
You're delivering results — but expertise alone won't get you in the room where decisions get made.

In this session, executive coach Julie Young walks through the four phases of her Next Level System™: understanding how you're wired and how others experience you, reading the organizational dynamics most people miss, influencing across functions without formal authority, and building the habits that make your leadership impossible to overlook.

Your speaker - Julie Young

Julie Young is an executive coach and founder of In-Sight Leadership Solutions. With 30+ years of leadership development experience across Fortune 500 companies — including Gillette, P&G, Takeda, ThermoFisher, and Pacific Western Bank — she has coached leaders navigating complex, cross-functional environments across pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, financial services, and technology. She specializes in helping Directors and Senior Directors build the visibility, influence, and organizational presence that gets their work recognized and their careers unstuck. Her Next Level System™ is grounded in validated assessments and 20+ market research interviews. Julie is an ICF ACC-certified coach and Hogan Suite practitioner.

Schedule:
5:30 - 6:10 PM Snacks, drinks and networking.
6:10 - 6:15 PM Quick Announcements/sponsor recognition
6:15 - 7:15 PM Presentation and Discussion
7:15- 7:30 PM Final Questions and Wrap Up

Food and drink from 6-6:30. Come early!

Human-Centered AI monthly Meetup.

TOPIC: The Smart Way to Deploy AI Agents
Agents are coming into the workforce whether your organization is ready or not. The question is whether you build the structure first or scramble after something goes wrong.
This session gives non-technical leaders a practical framework for deploying AI agents safely and securely. We cover what guardrails to build before an agent goes live, how to define ownership and accountability inside your existing team structure, and how to scope access so the blast radius of any mistake stays manageable. Then offer suggestions on the different routes available to deploy your first agent.
No coding required. No technical background assumed. Just clear, actionable guidance for the people who will be held responsible for how AI performs inside their organizations.
Walk away ready to lead this conversation instead of react to it.

Small Group Activity: Define Your Agent
Before you can build an agent safely, you need to know what you are actually building it for. In this hands-on session, your group will work through three questions:

• What problem are you solving?
• What would you have the agent do?
• And what would you never want it to do unsupervised?

Walk away with a rough use case you can take back to your organization and a clearer sense of where agents fit into your specific workflow.

Kate's Bio

Kate Marshall helps professionals implement AI safely and effectively, drawing on 20 years of experience in cybersecurity training, project management, and courseware development.
She is the founder of TheGr.ai, a consultancy focused on AI adoption, training, and governance. Kate works with executives, HR leaders, and small teams who know AI matters but do not have time to experiment endlessly or figure it out alone.

Throughout her career in cybersecurity education, Kate watched the same pattern repeat: smart, capable people blocked not by lack of intelligence, but by unclear systems and unrealistic expectations around technology. That shaped her approach: clear use cases, repeatable workflows, and systems built around how people actually work.