Meet our Chief Agile Officer
Dr. Andrea Hulshult is the Owner and Chief Agile Officer of Boldly Agile. She is passionate about how the Agile way of thinking and working can help teams innovate, deliver products to market faster, and create happy and engaged team members. She firmly believes that the Agile mindset is more important than following strict Agile practices—practices come and go, but the way people think and interact are the strong foundations of any team. Dr. Hulshult is an educator at heart and an Agilist. She embodies the Agile mindset, values, and principles in her daily life, and enjoys sharing the power of Agile with the world. Dr. Hulshult and the Boldly Agile team provide Agile education training, Agile consulting, Agile coaching, Agile transformation, and executive coaching. Dr. Hulshult is an award-winning Agile researcher and was awarded the 2020 Faculty Achievement in Teaching Award for Assistant Professors/Lecturers/VAPs from Miami University. Dr. Hulshult helped develop the first ever ICAgile accredited Agile concentration at a higher education institution in the world. She is honored to be an ICAgile member organization. Dr. Hulshult’s 20-year industry experience and her doctoral career allow her to apply Agile to the real world and help others do the same. She supports organizations in software development, information technology, transportation, higher education, non-profits, and the United States Government.
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Dr. Hulshult is passionate about epilepsy awareness and helping people get the support they need who suffer from epilepsy.
My Story
My career has been an exciting journey. After earning a Master of Arts in English, I disappointed my parents by getting a job and not attending law school. I worked for a software development firm as a technical writer and editor. Over my 18 years with this firm, I had amazing opportunities to be a SAP project manager, SAP trainer, global Help Desk representative, Help Desk manager, ScrumMaster, and Agile Product Owner. As an SAP project manager I got on a plane each week and flew to a customer who was implementing SAP. I loved it--I loved the work, the people, and watching software change organizations and employees. I have a passion for training, mentoring, and helping people to use technology and software to better their lives. I have a confession--I was a waterfall project manager. That is all we knew back then. When my firm went Agile in the early 2000s, I didn't quite know what to think. I reluctantly went to ScrumMaster training. After a few years of helping my teams transform to Agile, I had my "aha" moment. I witnessed my teams' communication improving. I saw our work being transparent, and I could predict how much work we could accomplish in a sprint. I could deliver value each sprint to our customers. My teams were excited to see the work they were doing. And I fell in love with Agile. I earned my Doctorate of Education in 2018 and have been passionately educating people on the Agile way of working ever since. My speciality is how to implement the Agile of way of thinking and working in non-technical spaces. I believe that an Agile mindset is more important than Agile practices or any Agile framework. I am honored to be an International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) member organization and to be a certified ICAgile instructor. My mission is to share Agile with the world.