Past Events: 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022
Upcoming Event: April 2026
Tentatively Thursday, March 23rd
Usually Occurs at 12:00pm PT / 2:00pm CT / 3:00pm ET
Guest Speaker: David Snowden
Topic: “TBD’“
Click HERE to Register.
Most Recent Event: March 19th
Summary:
Have you ever found yourself up late finishing something you’d known about for weeks, or missed a personal event because your day completely ran away from you? You’re not alone.
Between work, home, family, and everything else competing for your attention, managing time can feel impossible. The truth is, time management begins with focus. When you can manage your focus, getting things done becomes far less stressful—and a lot more satisfying.
In this interactive workshop, Helene Gidley introduces The Art of Agile Living, a simple, hands-on approach to creating focus and momentum in your daily life. Grounded in Agile principles that have transformed the software industry, this method adapts the best of that thinking into an easy, practical daily practice anyone can use.
The Art of Agile Living book is available on Amazon worldwide at https://a2agile.com/agilelivingbookorder
What you will learn:
- How Agile thinking applies beyond software, why small daily rituals matter for motivation,
- How to break work into manageable pieces, and
- How to stay focused—even when life throws interruptions your way.
- Most importantly, you won’t just hear about the method—you’ll practice it.
You’ll leave the session with your own personalized daily plan and your first real implementation of The Art of Agile Living, ready to use the very next day.
Materials Needed:
- Package of 1 3/8 x 1 7/8 inch sticky notes, available here
- Package of 3×3 inch sticky notes, available here
- 7 sheets of blank printer paper
- 1 pen or pencil
Takeaways:
- Workshop that helps you see and manage your work more clearly.
- Apply Agile principles to real life through guided exercises that turn proven Agile practices into practical daily habits.
- Leave with a personalized daily plan—your first working implementation of The Art of Agile Living that you can use immediately.
- Practice breaking real tasks into small, achievable steps that increase momentum, motivation, and follow-through.
About the Speaker:
Helene Gidley brings over 40 years of experience in the IT industry, working across Fortune 500 companies, startups, and mid-sized organizations. She has been helping teams adopt and grow Agile practices since 2003, with a focus on making those practices practical, sustainable, and human.
An entrepreneur and coach, Helene has founded two consulting firms focused on improving personal and team productivity. As co-founder of A2Agile Inc., she provides custom training and coaching to help organizations accelerate their agility and scale their Agile journey. Helene also leads the Agile Coach Retreat in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where experienced coaches come together to deepen their craft.
After spending more than 15 years as a certified Project Management Professional and IT Project Manager, Helene began blending the best of traditional project management with Agile principles to address a problem she saw everywhere: smart, capable people feeling overwhelmed by their day-to-day work. That blend became The Art of Agile Living.
Helene is passionate about supporting Agile learning in the community. In 2008, she founded the Agile Groupies Meetup in Ann Arbor, MI, and is a frequent speaker at Meetups, Agile conferences, and productivity-focused podcasts worldwide.
In this session, Helene shares a practical, hands-on approach you can use immediately to create focus and get more done—without burning out.
Past Event: February 26th
Summary:
The headlines are wrong. Agile isn’t dead! What’s dying is the cargo-cult version obsessed with rituals instead of results. Want to win more agile engagements and deliver better outcomes?
Join this session with Mike Lyons from KaiRise to learn how they’re partnering with firms to cut through the noise and deliver real results, chiefly using the power of AI-enabled, on-demand training and more. We need to get back to the first principles: improving flow, tightening feedback loops, empowering teams, and designing systems that adapt as quickly as the world changes. This event with KaiRise calls on transformation leaders to drop the dogma and rediscover true agility – small batches, decentralized decisions, and relentless learning.
Join us to explore what lowercase-a agile looks like today and how KaiRise partners with consultants to deliver it in real client engagements.
Takeaways:
- Leading Teams with Impact
- Improving Flow
- Empowering Teams
- Relentless Learning
About the Speaker:
Mike Lyons is an experienced agile delivery expert and course creator who’s spent decades helping teams cut through the noise and deliver what matters. From state election systems to global non-profit apps, Mike has helped thousands of master agile practices across government, corporate, and non-profit sectors. He brings a straight-talking, story-driven approach to leadership, project delivery, and learning. He co-founded KaiRise to equip the next generation of agile professionals with practical tools and tough questions, because agility isn’t theory, it’s what you do next.
