AI extends human capability at an accelerated pace. It doesn’t automatically make teams, value streams, or organizations any better, and it often amplifies whatever dysfunction is already there, at AI speed. In this opening session, Seán explains how he reached that conclusion after two years of research and testing into how Agile Values and Principles enrich human and AI interactions. He’ll cover why short feedback loops, transparency, small batches, human judgment at decision points, and psychological safety matter more once AI joins the team. Bring your questions about integrating AI into the workplace, along with your own AI experiences, since they’ll help shape the sessions that follow.

About Seán:

Seán González is an Enterprise Agile Coach, the founder and CEO of AIBizAgility, President of Agile New England, and a former Senior Director of IT. Over the past two years, working as a non-developer, he has built a multi-AI orchestration platform from scratch with Claude, ChatGPT, and other frontier models. Through a disciplined human and AI practice, the codebase has reached roughly a quarter-million lines and remains stable, which most AI-built software struggles to achieve at that scale. His research has produced reliable, structured sessions where he and several AIs reach consensus to solve problems together. His conclusion comes from that hands-on work: the values and principles that make human teams effective also make human and AI collaboration effective, and AI magnifies their impact. He is writing a book that connects Agile, ancient philosophy, and AI, and he is the CEO of Kurukulla Center, where he leads introductory Buddhism classes.

AI business cases usually count hours saved and tasks automated. Yet many organizations still see little in the P&L. In this one-hour session, Alex Hilton uses throughput accounting and the Theory of Constraints to show why. He explains how a big local productivity gain can leave overall throughput almost unchanged, and how to test whether an AI initiative creates value at your constraint or just adds activity. You’ll leave with a practical lens for judging AI investments in terms of ROI and cash flow.

About Alex:

Alex Hilton has spent more than 12 years helping organizations connect delivery, product, and finance. At National Grid, he leads Agile and digital transformation across more than ten enterprise portfolios. There he built an AI automation pipeline with a 240:1 productivity gain, applied it at a late project’s capacity constraint, and brought the project in on its committed date. Before that, he was a Release Train Engineer and Scrum Master at Ascend Learning, and he spent seven years using Lean and the Theory of Constraints to improve small and mid-sized businesses. He has written on AI accountability for California Management Review Insights and CFO.com, and he has contributed to national AI policy through the IEEE-USA AI & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee. He holds an MBA in Finance and is a Scrum Alliance Certified Team Coach. He also serves as Treasurer of Agile New England and Program Chair of the Agile Games & Software Teaming Conference.

In this session, Annette looks at what happens every time work passes from one person or team to the next: context gets lost, work sits waiting, and nobody owns the whole outcome. She’ll show how a few Agile fundamentals, such as shared ownership, working together across roles, and getting feedback early, replace those handoffs with real collaboration. Bring an example from your own work where things get stuck between people, and we’ll all have a chat about it.

About Anette:

Annette Ash has spent more than a decade helping organizations adopt Agile. She has been an Agile coach and trainer at Accenture | SolutionsIQ, where she trained banking, insurance, and healthcare professionals. She was later a Senior Agile Coach at Fidelity Investments, leading the transformation of 20 cross-functional teams with Scrum@Scale and SAFe. She started in software quality, running QA teams and building CI/CD and test-automation practices, so her coaching is grounded in how the work actually gets done. She is an ICAgile Certified Instructor and SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), and she currently serves as Mayor of Mantua, Utah.

For years, I wanted to build a software tool that would make the invisible visible. By showing executives and CFOs how a few well-chosen adjustments to organizational practices could speed up product development and cut costs, it would drive steady revenue and profit gains. But the idea languished, because building the tool was beyond my capabilities and budget.

Until AI changed what was possible. Eight days after starting, I was using my Purple Checkup software in conversations with customers. I showed them exactly how much addressing challenges such as slow delivery, competing priorities, and overloaded teams might improve cost, capacity, revenue, and ROI. With their knowledge and the tool, we could quantify the value of agility for their organization.

Fast development with AI makes agile thinking more important than ever. In this session, I’ll share how I used AI to turn an idea into a working tool in eight days, how agile methods helped me shape it, and why I’m keeping some well-known AI products and firing others. We’ll also discuss what it means for developers, coaches, leaders, and managers when AI shrinks the distance between “I want” and “I have.”

About the Speaker:

Peter B. Stevens helps leaders close the gap between vision and execution. His career path includes software development work at Microsoft, FIFA, and the Swiss Stock Exchange, years teaching Scrum, and experience advising leaders on change and innovation. Recently, he returned to development and used AI to build the Purple Checkup, which connects organizational fitness with business results.

Agile New England’s Monthly Guest Speaker is Virtual!

Please note the presentation will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

Nov 5, 2026 12:30 – 1:30 pm EDT (16:30 – 17:30 UTC) – Guest Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

What happens when collaborative development meets artificial intelligence? This session will explore how Software Teaming and AI can complement each other to amplify learning, improve outcomes, and strengthen team alignment.

You’ll see how teamwork is a powerful and effective way to create software, and how working with AI as a team compliments teamwork. We think of this as AI-assisted teaming – which can include everything we do from ideation to deployment and beyond. We’ll share what has worked, what hasn’t, and how to keep humans at the center of collaboration.

If you’re curious about Software Teaming (also known as Mob or Ensemble Programming) or if you’re experimenting with AI tools, you’ll see practical ways to integrate both without losing the magic of thinking together.

About the Speakers:

Woody Zuill is an Agile and Lean Software Development guide who has been programming computers for over 40 years. He is an originator and pioneer of the Software Teaming (Mob Programming) approach to teamwork in software development. He has spoken frequently at Agile New England meetings and played a leading role in organizing and delivering our Agile Games conferences.

James Herr is a software engineer passionate about AI, Claude Code, and collaborative ways of working. He advocates for Ensemble/Mob Programming and enjoys experimenting with how AI can help teams build, learn, and think together. Outside of work, he’s a game developer and game jam organizer who uses game development as a playground for new ideas.

Agile New England’s Monthly Keynote Speaker is Virtual!

Please note our keynote will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

5:30 – 6:30 pm ET – Agile 101 breakout with Garry Miller (or network in main Zoom session)

6:30 – 8:00 pm ET – Keynote Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

AI is evolving from a productivity tool into an intelligent collaborator, transforming how organizations create products, make decisions, and deliver value. As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, Agile teams are entering a new era where roles, collaboration models, and ways of working are evolving.

The question is no longer whether AI will impact Agile—but how Agile itself evolves to thrive in the AI-native enterprise.

This session will explore the opportunities and challenges organizations face as they integrate AI into their ways of working, including the evolution of Agile teams, human-AI collaboration, responsible AI adoption, and the growing importance of governance, security, and compliance.

Join this thought-provoking discussion to gain strategic perspectives on preparing Agile teams, leaders, and organizations for the next evolution of agility in an AI-driven world.

About the Speaker:

Rama Nandiwada Chivakula is a strategic, data-driven product leader, entrepreneur, strategist, and thought leader.  She currently helps organizations with business strategy, platform implementation, digital and AI transformation, and Agile evolution while navigating change through human-AI collaboration, governance, and responsible adoption. As an entrepreneur, Rama has led global cross-functional teams, launched more than 15 SaaS platforms, and delivered over 20 B2B and B2C products across retail, supply chain, MarTech, Fintech, HR, life sciences, legal, and cloud-based enterprise platforms. She connects technical innovation, people, and business value to create impactful platforms and strategic outcomes.

Agile New England’s Monthly Keynote Speaker is Virtual!

Please note our keynote will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

5:30 – 6:30 pm ET – Agile 101 breakout with Garry Miller (or network in main Zoom session)

6:30 – 8:00 pm ET – Keynote Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

Tired of the administrative tasks that just feel like overhead? Move beyond basic chatting and learn to build custom AI assistants that help with your everyday workload. In this interactive workshop, we will explore how any business team—from software and product to marketing and operations—can use AI as a practical team collaborator.

Through hands-on exercises, you will design specialized AI assistants to instantly turn raw whiteboard sessions into structured backlogs, generate fresh retrospectives, and transform unstructured meeting data into measurable continuous improvement goals. Discover how to offload low-value tasks to AI so you can reclaim your time for what matters most: coaching, collaborating, and delivering human-centric value.

About the speaker

Erica Maguire  is Director of Planning and Strategic Initiatives in Risk and Compliance at WEX, a large financial tech company. There, she leads critical initiatives, including an AI governance task force and cross-functional AI functional redesigns. Erica first discovered Agile in marketing, and after quickly seeing its power has spent nearly a decade leading teams of Scrum Masters supporting software and business teams. A passionate facilitator, she specializes in Open Space meetings and  for several years has hosted Agile Maine Open Spaces. Across all domains, Erica leverages Agile values as a universal framework to eliminate overhead, steer strategy, and get things done.

Agile New England’s Monthly Keynote Speaker is Virtual!

THIS MONTH ONLY – MEETING IS ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 (Not Thursday)!

Please note our keynote will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

5:30 – 6:30 pm ET – Agile 101 breakout with Garry Miller (or network in main Zoom session)

6:30 – 8:00 pm ET – Keynote Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

In the world of gaming, a new release means a “new meta”: rule changes that transform the strategies and tactics that lead to victory.

AI is creating a new meta for Agile teams. Failing to adapt will lead to stagnation. But you can use the techniques of good gamers to make the new rules enabling constraints and exploit them to boost the competitive advantage of your organization (and its customers).

Chris and Dan will share with you their Agile Gamer Mindset and show you how to leverage curiosity, iterative rule-testing, failure, and fun to adapt your practices and tools to the new landscape being created by AI.

About the speakers

Agile New England’s Monthly Keynote Speaker is Virtual!

Please note our keynote will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

5:30 – 6:30 pm ET – Agile 101 breakout with Garry Miller (or network in main Zoom session)

6:30 – 8:00 pm ET – Keynote Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

Agility depends on processes that are flexible and focused on maximizing customer value. Unfortunately, all too often Agile teams are forced to use metrics and practices that destroy flexibility and prioritize deadlines over outcomes. A common symptom: planning reports where almost all of the tasks are green, yet team members know that deadlines are slipping and delivered value will be less than promised.

This session will discuss metrics and practices that make Agile processes more predictable, reduce risk, and close the expectations gap between management and Agile teams.

You will learn:

• Warning signs of practices that destroy predictability, such as starting too much work and relying on velocity to measure output
• How feedback loops and leading indicators like flow metrics can increase the predictability of Agile processes
• How the right metrics and direct talk between leaders and teams can surface risk early and avoid nasty surprises
• Why psychological safety is essential to prevent team members from holding back information about delays and risks
• How to focus managers and teams on value delivered rather than meeting deadlines.

About the Speaker

Miguel Rosales is a Scrum Agile delivery leader. He has over nine years of experience leading and facilitating Scrum teams to deliver high-quality products and services. Miguel is a Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) and a Professional Scrum Master (PSM), with a strong background in business management and operations. He likes to approach challenges with a focus on impact by inspiring, motivating, and helping teams achieve success.

After the May event — a look at what’s next for ANE
Stick around after the main talk for a short 15-minute presentation from Seán, Nancy, and Alex — the slate running for the next ANE BoD term. They’ll share their thoughts on where ANE is heading and what they’d like to do together with the community. If you’re curious about ANE’s future — or have ideas of your own — this is the time to hear what’s being proposed, ask questions, and weigh in before the June vote.

Agile New England’s Monthly Keynote Speaker is Virtual!

Please note our keynote will be fully virtual with no in-person meeting. The new timeline follows:

5:30 – 6:30 pm ET – Agile 101 breakout with Garry Miller (or network in main Zoom session)

6:30 – 8:00 pm ET – Keynote Speaker, followed by announcements and free-form networking

Cristin Hernandez led a $2 million transformation that followed every change management best practice and delivered nothing. She led a $20,000 initiative with no formal plan that succeeded beyond expectations. Along the way, she discovered something unsettling: the foundations of modern change management are built on a misunderstanding.

Organizations continue to invest millions in change initiatives with failure rates estimated at 70%. The main reason for this dismal record is that most popular change management frameworks make the same mistake: turning emergence into prescription and optimizing plans for getting management approval rather than for maximizing learning.

In this session you will:

1. Learn about the foundational misunderstanding that has distorted modern change management, including Kotter’s 8 steps and the ADKAR framework: a failure to understand the “action research” approach of Kurt Lewin (the “grandfather of change management”).
2. See concrete examples contrasting top-down implementation vs. emergent, learning-based approaches to change management
3. Find out how to redirect your change management activities toward learning instead of control
4. Identify what you can stop doing and how to redirect that energy toward a change management process that actually works

About the Speaker

Cristin Hernandez is an operations leader specializing in human-centric organizational change. She has over 15 years of experience in tech, including work in customer support, implementation, product management, and operations. That broad experience, together with her study of agile and change management frameworks, have given her a clear-eyed view of why ambitious transformations so often fail. Cristin is currently at Penn State, researching the gap between what the science of change management says and what the industry buys and sells.