Onward4

I also was curious about this thing called Agile. How was it that it could not only transform my company but the entire software industry and beyond, unleashing and aligning passions to create in new ways?

I started to apply what I had I learned from Agile in different areas in my community. I led an initiative by the City of Portland to co-create an economic development strategy with the software industry, co-founded TaborSpace to reimagine a church as a community gathering place. Then co-founded a new community organization called the Rosewood Initiative to build a place that empowered a community. Each time I applied agile practices to unleash and align transformational passions.

But that larger question still nagged me. What does our future, our children's future, look like when new global competitive pressures threaten our wellbeing?

At the core of any economy is its people. And those people are shaped by their education. Empower people through education and a promising future unfolds. Shackle them and our worst fears will be realized.

As many will agree, our current education system, designed for another era, is not only profoundly failing our students, it is undermining our economy.

So the table was set for the critical question: Might the mindsets and skillsets of Agile help us reimagine how we educate our students to unleash new passions, new potential, new prosperity? I didn't know. But I was committed to finding out.

Agile. Passion. Education. I felt a new truth was in there. Somewhere.

And further I wondered, might that truth provide us insight into the deeper questions about our human experience?

This story is deeply personal. But it is also the story of our children, our country and our future. We need to open our eyes. We need to summon our courage. We need to step into the unknown and reimagine. We have no choice.

Next: The Dayton Experiment