A Huge Thank You to Agile Alliance Volunteers

April 18-24th, 2021 is Volunteer Week in the US and Canada, and at Agile Alliance we recognize that much of our work and service to the community is accomplished through the hard work of many volunteers.

As a member-supported organization, we want to give a round of thanks to the people who keep all of the wheels turning here at the Alliance. We don’t say “thank you!” enough, so this week we’d like to take a moment to pause and give sincere thanks to the many volunteers who dedicate so much of their time and energy to help us make the member experience of an Agile Alliance member the best that it can be.

Ways Our Volunteers Serve

Here are some of the many ways that volunteers serve our organization.

Initiatives

From the recently born Agile In Color Initiative to the venerable Agile Open Initiative, the needs of the community are served by many passionate individuals who saw a need, a gap in services, or an inspiring way to contribute, and proposed their initiatives to the Agile Alliance Board. Some of that work includes:

• Providing funding for not-for-profit Agile-focused conferences, Open Space events, speaker appearances at community events, and community group support in the Agile space.
• Providing Agile training to high school students residing in tech-challenged school districts throughout the United States through the 5 Saturdays program.
• Providing support for events and speakers in emerging economies worldwide such as South Africa, Colombia, and more.
• Making Agile Product Management practices and principles accessible to many more people through events and meetups.
• Hosting excellent Agile Coach Camp events which attract participants from all over the world to foster agile coaching skills.
• Agile Retrospectives and training events to improve the retrospective experience.
• Mentoring and coaching focused on historically underrepresented communities, such as Agilists of color.
• Building a thriving community of Agilists in India through a series of events stretching throughout the year, beginning with an unconference and ending with job fairs and mentorship opportunities.
• Growing Racial Equity through a series of online events that began in 2020 and will continue into 2021, to open up conversations on Equity and Diversity in the Agile and tech space.
• Experience Report shepherds who guide authors as they craft the stories that help inform us of what is happening in our communities.
• Business Agility leaders and practitioners who share learnings about adopting Agile across the enterprise.
• Establishing a code of Agile Coaching Ethics to guide coaches and others who lead agile teams.

Conferences & Events

From the program teams which put together an outstanding program for each of our family of conferences to the Agile 20XX purple shirts who volunteer their time to ensure that the week is an organized and enjoyable experience for all attendees, conference volunteers rock our world. We could not hold the many different events that we offer – including Agile2021,  deliver:Agile Live!, and XP 2o21 – without our very dedicated and talented volunteers who serve in the following capacities:

• Conference Steering Committee
• Conference Chairs, Track Chairs, and Reviewers
• Purple Shirt & On-site Volunteer Teams

Board of Directors

The Agile Alliance Board of Directors is a unique group of volunteers who bring together their many areas of expertise to help guide and direct the organization. Each of the board members dedicates a significant amount of their personal time to board and organizational activities to ensure that Agile Alliance continues to run smoothly with a laser focus on future goals, and improving and iterating to better serve the community.

Find out more about how to support Agile Alliance by volunteering with an initiative or to nominate yourself for the Board of Directors

Thank You!

To all of these varied and talented individuals, we thank you! And we acknowledge your lifting up of the organization and the principles of Agility through your many many dedicated hours of service.

Here’s to all of you, without whom we could not accomplish our mission. We see you, we are honored to work with you, and we are extremely grateful for each of you who chose to share your talents and abilities with our community.

About the Author

This is an Agile Alliance community blog post. Opinions represented are personal and belong solely to the author. They do not represent opinion or policy of Agile Alliance.