Index

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT – FROM MINDSET TO CONSCIOUSNESS: PLAYING THE INFINITE GAME OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

We hope you will join us for June’s event to learn about how to spot developmental as opposed to lower level learning experiences in the context of an agile consciousness.

RSVP here: From Mindset to Consciousness: Playing the Infinite Game of Human Development

Wednesday, June 19, 2019
6:30PM – 8:00PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

Agile is part of an evolution in consciousness–in the nature of our awareness and noticing skills and our knowledge of self and other. When agile emerges in an organization, it does so within a consciousness unlike its own. Yet, our approaches to agility often impede its ability to stick where it emerges.

Agilists have used the frames of mindset and learning. But, we need to use the frames of consciousness and development in order to truly transform. In doing so, we see agile transformations are actually personal transformations. Organizations don’t change, people change and then the organization adapts.

This deep dive session discusses the agile mindset and puts “mindset” in the context of “consciousness.” It speaks to advancing agilists who are trying to understand why adoptions go wrong when they have done everything “right.” You are more likely to receive full value in this session if you have been pursuing agility within organisations for at least three years.

This session provides pointers on how to spot developmental as opposed to lower level learning experiences. It is based on my own practice, on research I did for my master’s thesis, and on my book The Preservation of the Agile Heart: From Mindset to Consciousness.

Learning Outcomes:

Be able to articulate a working definition of consciousness
Understand the difference between mindset and consciousness
Understand how consciousness and human development align
Understand the difference between learning and development
Be able to spot learning opportunities that do not facilitate development
Be able to create opportunities for personal development and self-care in the context of development

Speaker Bio:

Jean Richardson is a consultant and coach with nearly 30 years of experience in software development, with half of that time spent in learning about agile and participating in the agile movement. For the last six years she has coached individuals and teams in agile-aspiring organizations. A former AgilePDX Coordinating Committee member, Jean is actively involved in helping, guiding, and coaching the agile community at the local and national levels toward a collective agile consciousness!

In case you missed our previous posts, Agile PDX is a large organization of Agile practitioners among the greater Portland metropolitan area. Their vision is to see Portland as a world-class leader in software development. Their vision is to see Portland as a world-class leader in software development, defining “world-class” as profitable, sustainable, and joyful. Their mission is to work together to create a vibrant, successful Agile community of practice in Portland, sharing experiences, distilled wisdom, and innovative ideas for Agile done well.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for June 19th and we hope to see you there!

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT – JOHARI WINDOW, WHAT’S THAT? DO I NEED ONE?

We hope you will join us for May’s event to learn about how to use the Johari window to help teams connect on a deeper level without oversharing.

RSVP here: Johari Window, what’s that? Do I need one?

Wednesday, May 15, 2019
6:30PM – 8:00PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

One of the keys to effectiveness is to know yourself and show yourself the Goldilocks amount. How do you avoid TMI (Too Much Information)? And, at the other end of the spectrum, how do you keep from being too reserved to share much of anything with other people?

If you know yourself well enough, you can share relevant information to improve communication and connect with others. And the more expert communicators you have on your team, the more potential you have to build trust in a professional way.

One tool to help you on this journey is the Johari Window. Created by psychologists Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in 1955, the Johari Window helps people understand what they show and what they hide from the world; what they don’t see and what they don’t even know about themselves.

Neal first learned about the Johari Window in one of his leadership training sessions, and it piqued his interest as a facilitation tool. We are excited to have Neal share his insights about how to use the Johari window to help teams connect on a deeper level without oversharing. And for those interested, we’ll have an opportunity for hands-on exercises.

Speaker Bio:

Neal Peterson is a business consultant who helps businesses utilize the full capacity of their systems and processes. His goal is to enable businesses and people to do more with less, more efficiently and effectively. As a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Six Sigma Lean Black Belt Professional (LBBP), and self taught agile coach, he collaborates across the functional departments of an organization to enable continuous measurable improvement of end to end value chain processes. He has done this for companies in the healthcare, financial services, retail, government, software, semi-conductor, transportation, shipping, and manufacturing industries. He seeks to share the agile mindset with others in the community via conversations and facilitated sessions that enable learning in a collaborative environment.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for May 15th and we hope to see you there!

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT – ALIGNING YOUR TEAM…BEYOND PRE-DEFINED ROLES

We hope you will join us for April’s event to learn about some areas to be aware of, that we can sometimes overlook, or be completely blind to when we start a project that is agile, waterfall, or hybrid as well as avenues for addressing these oversights to empower you and your team.

RSVP here: Aligning Your Team…Beyond Pre-Defined Roles

Wednesday, April 17, 2019
6:30PM – 8:00PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

Some Agile methodologies prescribe roles within a team. Then why can it be so hard some times to get a team aligned and firing on all cylinders throughout the course of all sprints? This presentation will call out some areas to be aware of, that we can sometimes overlook, or be completely blind to when we start a project that is agile, waterfall, or hybrid. We will then look at avenues to address these oversights to empower you and your team to better see and address how you can improve your team’s effectiveness in building deliverables, your organization, and individual team members.

Speaker Bio:

Kip Davis is the Principal at Deal With The Gap LLC. He has 25+ years professional experience in and across multiple functions from software & hardware support to Director of Marketing to PMO Manager, to Product Manager, and CRM Administrator, among others. He has helped set up and manage Programs, PMOs and Portfolios. He’s utilized agile, hybrid, and waterfall methodologies as manager, consultant, contractor, and employee. He is a life-long learner and has an MBA degree, with applicable certifications of Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Prosci Change Practitioner, Illumeo Organization Development Certification, and Certified Business Architect (CBA). Through extensive research and experience he has considered and conceptually combined and bridged several relevant industry models and methodologies and established an alignment framework which he uses to help individuals and organizations understand where they are in relation to their desired outcomes, and what options they can take or create to better accomplish their goals.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for April 17th and we hope to see you there!

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT – AGILE UNBOUNDED: RE-IMAGINING EDUCATION

We hope you will join us for March’s event to learn about the impacts of taking agile mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets from our agile community and partnering with a school district to re-imagine education.

RSVP here: Agile Unbounded: re-imagining education

Wednesday, March 20, 2019
6:30PM – 8:00PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

While our tech-based companies are struggling to find the talent needed to grow a new creative economy, our schools are still stuck in a 100-year-old model that was designed to produce workers for an industrial age. Students desperately want to be a part of the future but many are struggling to understand why they are even showing up to school each day. Here in Oregon, we have the second worst graduation rate in the entire country. Some would joke that we are the Mississippi of the West, except that Mississippi now has a higher graduation rate.

Four years ago Innovate Oregon launched The Dayton Experiment, in Dayton Oregon, a rural community in Yamhill County where two-thirds of the students live in poverty and a third of the students are Hispanic.

This experiment explored what might happen if you took the agile mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets from our agile community and partnered with a school district to re-imagine education. Might it be possible for an entire school district to transform from a traditional teaching institution into a dynamic learning organization, one that unleashes the creative genius of their students?

Today, Dayton has a 97% graduation rate and recently sent a student design team to be showcased at MIT. It is inspiring agile cultural transformations in districts throughout the entire state.

Thompson will be sharing the story of this journey and lessons that have been learned when bringing agile to a complex ecosystem. These lessons have direct implications for companies seeking to scale agile within their organizations.

Speaker Bio:

Thompson Morrison is the Founder and Chief Evangelist for Innovate Oregon, originally a strategic initiative of the TAO Foundation. For 15 years he ran a software company whose development teams embraced agile practices. He was on the Board of the TAO and chaired their strategy committee that led the transformation of the organization from its earlier manifestation as the SAO. He led the team from the TAO and PDC that developed a community-based economic development strategy for the software industry. He was a founding board member of the STEM Investment Council and co-authored Oregon’s STEM Investment Plan. He is also the co-founder of both TaborSpace and the Rosewood Initiative.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for March 20th and we hope to see you there!

TGG REVEALS NEW WEBSITE AND LOGO

We have exciting news to share — The Gunter Group has a new look!

To kick off 2019, we revealed our new website and logo! Refreshing the TGG brand was a conscious decision to better align our brand and website with the work we do every day as a firm. The launch gives us a much more effective way to present ourselves to current and potential clients as well as to potential candidates. In addition to laying the foundation for growth into new markets, we’ve revitalized our brand to reflect our capabilities as a management consulting firm. Learn more about what we do here.

“We’re so excited to introduce a new brand that symbolizes our connection to our clients in a very tangible way,” said Mike Gunter, founding partner. “We are continuing to grow to meet our clients’ needs, provide exceptional opportunities for our consultants, and build our communities in the best possible way,” added partner Ashleigh Gunter.

Check out the full press release announcing TGG’s website launch and logo reveal on OregonBusiness.Com.

TGG RANKS AGAIN AS ONE OF THE TOP 10 COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN OREGON

A couple months ago we learned that The Gunter Group ranked on the Oregon Business ‘100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon’ list for the 5th year in a row!

Specific rankings were announced at the annual awards celebration dinner hosted by Oregon Business at the Oregon Convention Center. Our team attended the awards dinner on February 28th, 2019 and we are delighted to share that we have again been recognized as one of the Top 10 companies – our first year in the medium business category!

Parallel with the rankings announcement, Oregon Business published The Gunter Group’s brand story in their March 2019 edition of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon’. The article highlights our commitment to clients, our people, and the communities in which we work and live. We are proud of our continued presence in the Top 10 on this list because it reflects these company values. Read the full story on OregonBusiness.Com.

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT: FAKES & BULLIES – TAMING YOUR IMPOSTER SYNDROME TO FIND YOUR INNER THOUGHT LEADER

We hope you will join us for February’s event to learn about how to share your most exciting thoughts and receive the thoughts of others in agile/scrum/Kanban teams.

RSVP here: Fakes & Bullies – Taming Your Impostor Syndrome to Find Your Inner Thought Leader

Wednesday, February 20, 2019
6:30PM – 8:00PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

So you’re learning Agile! You get excited because you discover something and bring it to work and – POOF – someone discards your ideas like they’re useless! Or someone comes to you and wants to “coach” you about what you “should” be doing in agile/scrum/Kanban teams. How do you share your most exciting thoughts and receive the thoughts of others?

Both Kat and Kathey (Kat’s inner critic) will be presenting. Join Kat/Kathey on her journey from curious newby, to “fake expert” to “Newby Thought Leader” and back again…and again. Kathey will discuss self-doubt, blame, living behind the walls of our assumptions. Using those defense mechanisms, Kat will share how she has been able to rewrite some bad internal dialogs to develop channels that have allowed her to passionately share often valuable insight with those around her, and to be recognized for doing so. She will also share her failures, and how she was able to apply them differently in subsequent exchanges. (50 min with optional facilitated networking to follow)

Speaker Bio:

Kat Daugherty is a practicing Enterprise Transformation Agile Coach at Slalom Portland, with 2k+ LinkedIn followers and a cornucopia of speaking, training, publishing and facilitation learning and accomplishments. She’s passionate about mentoring, reconfirming our biases, empathy-centric leadership, and personal branding.

“Kathey Daugherty” is Kat’s inner critic who often wonders if she is really as good as those she views as more accomplished, more intelligent, smarter or better than she is at agile, speaking, and life in general.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for February 20th and we hope to see you there!

TGG SPONSORED AGILE PDX EVENT: USING SCIENCE FOR AGILE IMPROVEMENT – A HANDS-ON SIMULATION

We hope you will join us for December’s event to learn about the Improvement Kata (IK), a four-step scientific striving pattern that is practiced in many business organizations and makes scientific thinking a teachable skill that anyone can learn.

RSVP here: Using Science for Agile Improvement – A Hands-on Simulation

Wednesday, December 19, 2018
6:30PM – 8:30PM
Puppet Labs, 5th Floor
308 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204

Details about the event:

Scientific thinking is a life skill that forms the basis for creativity at work and the successful pursuit of seemingly unattainable goals. The Improvement Kata (IK) is a four-step scientific striving pattern that is practiced in many business organizations. It makes scientific thinking a teachable skill that anyone can learn.

This fun, high-energy, simulation uses a simple hands-on activity to step participants through the Improvement Kata pattern. Working in a 5 person team, you’ll follow the Improvement Kata pattern to (1) face a challenge, (2) measure where you are, (3) establish a next goal and (4) experiment toward that goal in three-minute iterations.

Together, we’ll discover new insights for improving agile practices. As an individual you’ll learn a fun activity you can repeat with your own teams in under an hour. And, there may be prizes for members of the winning team!

Speaker Bio:

Adam Light helps leaders deliver results and improve their organizations by combining scientific thinking with lean and agile methods. He is an experienced consultant, teacher, and coach who drives systemic transformation through a focus on leadership capabilities and practical skills. Adam began his career as a software developer before becoming a manager of projects and people; he has more than 25 years of software industry experience. Since 2009 Adam has led SoTech, a consultancy providing customized improvement solutions for organizations worldwide.

Their regularly held meetings are as follows and more information can be found on their Meetup page:

Downtown Pub Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the first Friday of the month.

Westside Cafe Lunch: 12:00PM – 1:00PM on the fourth Friday of the month.

Downtown Evening Events: Third Wednesday of the month at Puppet Labs: Doors open at 6:30PM, main event starts at 7:00PM and usually runs to 8:00PM, out of the building by 8:30PM.

We will announce each TGG sponsored event as they are posted, so please check back for updates! Mark your calendars now for December 19th and we hope to see you there!

TGG RANKED ON PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL’S MOST GENEROUS CORPORATE PHILANTHROPISTS LIST

We are excited to announce that The Gunter Group ranked #18 on Portland Business Journal’s Most Generous Corporate Philanthropists small business list. The company’s ranking was announced at the 2018 Corporate Philanthropy Awards on October 17th. The Gunter Group is proud to be recognized as part of this group and especially honored to make the list alongside other local companies for giving back to the community! Read more here.