Our Origin
Some of our coaches have trained in the martial arts, and in Somatic Leadership which borrows many metaphors from Aikido. In many Martial Art traditions, one studies and repeats the forms exactly through a series of practices, not varying them until they reach a certain level of mastery.
Agile is both a mindset and a series of practices to creating a learning culture at work that works closely with customers, delivers work of the highest-value first, and continues to inspect and adapt while fostering transparency and accountability.
As we work to help create individuals, teams, and organizations that think and work in a more agile way, we invite them to start by following practices that are known to support and accelerate change until an agile mindset has taken root within their culture. Anyone can lead, and choose the qualities and skills they wish to cultivate.
Our People
John Eisenschmidt
For nearly 20 years, John has coached high performance teams through transformational projects inside of corporations, nonprofits, higher education, and the federal government.
As a Agile Coach and Program Manager, John has led numerous large and multi-year initiatives with colocated and federated teams. He is a PMI-certified Project Management Professional (PMP)®, a ScrumAlliance Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM) and Certified Scrum Professional® (CSP), and an ICAgile Certified Professional Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC).
As a professional coach, John believes that leadership is more than just a designation, and that leaders take responsibility for their own development. He works with individuals and teams to cultivate their authenticity, dignity, presence, and resilience, primarily using somatics (working through the body). He is a graduate of the CCL’s Leadership Development Program, a Strozzi Institute certified Somatic Coach (SISC), and an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC). John is a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator.
John holds a B.S. in Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems from the George Mason University School of Business. He is an Adjunct at Georgetown University, where he teaches leadership in their Project Management certificate program.
John co-facilitates the monthly Agile Coaching Exchange in SoCal and Online. He is also a Leadership Development Coach for the Global Good Fund.
Alicia McLain
Alicia is a Lean Agile Transformation | Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry with leadership positions in program management and software development management. Her clients are in the Department of Defense (DoD), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Medical Device, Medical Research and Manufacturing space. Alicia coaches, trains and transforms mid-size to large companies domestically and internationally. She has been a facilitator of change and transformation to an agile approach using Scrum in a number of local and some international companies. Alicia’s career passion has been around leadership & building high performing, psychologically safe teams. As a coach who has led and witnessed the transformation of people, attitudes, hearts and minds towards high performance using Agile practices, she is passionate about being of service to help teams and organizations get there!!
Alicia is the founder and co-organizer of the Agile Coaching Exchange for North America with a base in San Diego/SoCal (ACE:SoCal), the first meet up group of its kind established in the United States in partnership with the original group in London. This group is in service to the Agile coaching community from CSM up for members who would like to enhance their skill set, share ideas, and take their coaching careers to the next level.