Diana Larsen

Diana Larsen BA ’86, who is called “a visionary pragmatist” by colleagues and clients, serves as a leadership agility advisor to groups and individuals. Her services include delivering keynote talks, as well as providing consulting and mentoring services. Together with clients and partners, Larsen discovers solutions and possibilities where others find only barriers and obstacles. For decades, she has worked toward a vision of an inspiring future guided by two statements: 1) “Every agile software team practices Agile Software Development at a level of fluent proficiency that specifically fits their businesses’ needs.” and 2) “Everyone at every part of the organization can say, ‘I love my work, this is the best job ever.’” Devoted to the success of all Agile leaders, coaches, and teams, Larsen coauthored the books Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams; Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great; Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams; Five Rules for Accelerated Learning. The second edition of her book Agile Retrospectives: A Practical Guide for Catalyzing Team Learning and Improvement will soon be published. She also co-originated the Agile Fluency® Model. Throughout her career, Larsen has partnered with clients in the software and high-tech industries to support them to thrive and prosper in times of change. She works alongside leaders to build their proficiency in shaping environments for productive, resilient teams. She cowrote with James Shore the seminal article “Agile Fluency Model: A Brief Guide to Success with Agile.” As cofounder and partner, she served as COO and chief connector at the Agile Fluency® Project. Continuing her service with volunteer experiences, Larsen now serves on the advisory board of the Organization Design Forum. For fun, she leads team, project, and whole system processes for collaborative thinking and planning. She is a sought-after facilitator for open-space technology and other large-group participation events. Find out more about Larsen at her website, dianalarsen.com, on LinkedIn, and @DianaOfPortland@agilealliance.social on Mastodon. Sign up for her infrequent newsletter or leave a note at dianalarsen.com/subscribe.

Diana Larsen BA ’86 writes: “After coauthoring two books earlier in the new century, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (2006) and Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams (2016), I decided to take time off from book writing to concentrate on building a new small business. In 2020-21, while spending more time in my home office, I got the energy and encouragement to begin three new book-writing efforts with three different coauthor partners/groups. The first of the three will come out in fall 2021, The Art of Agile Development, 2nd edition (with primary author James Shore). The other two are scheduled for publication in early 2022.”

Diana Larsen BA ’86 is the author of two books, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, and Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams, each of which offers strategies and insights on managing and optimizing teams in the workplace. (The books were published by Pragmatic Bookshelf in 2006 and 2016, respectively.)

Diana Larsen BA ’86 has devoted 29 years to providing management consulting services (the last 19 in the software industry). Now she’s switching things up with a training product business start-up called the Agile Fluency Project. Based on the model she developed with colleague James Shore, the business focuses on improving software development outcomes.