McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse

Imagine coming to work every day where you're free to be your authentic self, you have open trust with all of your coworkers, and you can easily focus together, experiment, and create great value without regard to role or hierarchy. What if all individuals and teams got to experience this kind of open, creative, productive, inspiring workplace? We too often see that this is not the case for ourselves or our teams as we often lack Psychological Safety in our work environment.

So what are the culprits that cause this lack of safety? Is it miscommunication, politics, old management practices, or something else? Join us as we explore the challenges to Psychological Safety and learn from each other's experiences where Psychological Safety was at it's best and teams thrived. If you've been on either side of this Safety line, we invite you to share your experiences and what has helped your teams to open up or caused them to shut down.

Continuing with our theme of learning, the Westside cafe will discuss how we can create a culture where it is ok to probe deeply into our mistakes without fear.

Please join us Nov 17th for this discussion.

[Note: This session will be held at the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Please ask the host at the front of the Imbrie Hall building for the AgilePDX group's location.]

Ideation to Development: How to break down work to reduce dependancies and improve clarity.

Sometimes we know it will take many moving pieces to deliver our value. It's more than a minor challenge to keep all these parts organized, understandable, and created at the right time... in fact it may be the holy grail for achieving flow in our value delivery!

Share your stories, techniques, and learnings around the art of breaking down value into manageable, understandable, and deliverable chunks.

Presented by the Portland State Professional Development Center

  Business professionals interested in learning more about the “Lean” manufacturing process are invited to a new educational and networking opportunity initiated by the Professional Development Center at Portland State University. The first in Portland State’s “Spirit of Learning Workshops,” will feature Charles Saunders, who will present “The Lean Story: How to Simplify Business Practices and Improve Supply Chain Management.” Saunders will showcase the latest information from the upcoming fall session.

  Saunders is an expert in Lean Process Management. His most recent assignment was serving as Consultant for African Affairs and Strategic Partnerships for Dan Bernstine, former Portland State president. He holds a bachelors degree in humanities from Portland State and a master of management from Cambridge College. He is certified in Lean Administration and is also a Six Sigma Green Belt.

  Lean Process Improvement is the most comprehensive system for reducing cost and installing quality across an entire organization. Lean employs the concepts of process flow and Value Stream Mapping to ensure that all work is measurable. It is especially useful for professionals in business, government or nonprofit concentrated in manufacturing, health care, service, distribution or retail.

  Attendance is no charge and drinks and refreshments will be available. Professional Development staff and students will be on hand to answer questions about the Lean Certification Program.

Vijay Vashee brings a stellar record of accomplishment in the fields of technology innovation and entrepreneurial investing. Vijay is the founding President of TiE-Seattle, an active angel investor and mentor to entrepreneurs – these investment include Drivecam, Pritest and Iconclude among others. He is also Managing Partner and co- founder of the Tenex India Fund, a cross-border investment hedge fund.

Vijay retired from Microsoft in 2001 after a distinguished career in leading PowerPoint, MS-Project and various other product-line to commercial success crossing a span of over 19 years.

An alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Cornell University and University of Chicago – School of Business, Vijay has been active on various non-profit boards including TiE Global Board of Trustees, Bellevue Community College and the Foundation for Early Learning.

Finding the money to invest in your startup is tough even in normal times. With the global economic climate being what it is today this task is even harder. How do you find the right funding in this environment? Join our experienced group of Venture Capitalists Venky Ganesan, Managing Director of Globespan Capital, Carolynn Duncan, Micro-business expert and subject matter expert in VC /Angel funding & Bobby Kandaswamy, Director Strategic Investments at Intel Capital on Feb 5th to discuss the best ways of funding your company in a downturn.

Do you live in Washington County, Oregon, use Twitter and want to meet your Twitter friends IRL? If so, come join us for lunch at the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Learn more about the peeps you follow, check out @jaboncroft's cool gadgets, find a biz partner for your new #afterhours project, and/or just plain have fun!