July 2026 Dinner Meeting with Amand Orgeron
Speaker: Amanda Orgeron, PMP, FLMI, CLU
Topic: Building High-Performing Agile Teams
Location: Char Restaurant, 4500 I-55 North, Jackson, MS 39211
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Time: 6:00 P - 7:00 PM
Cost: $40 PMICMS Members, $40 Non-members
PDUs: 1
Speaker Bio:
Amanda Orgeron serves as Director of Strategic Services at Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, where she founded and leadsthe Strategic Services division, which consists of Project Management (PMO), Strategy Management, and Vendor Management. In this role, she is responsible for enterprise strategic planning, portfolio management, and vendor management, aligning business strategy with execution across the organization.
With over 25 years of experience in the life insurance industry, Amanda has led large-scale transformation initiatives spanning policy administration modernization, digital customer and agent portals, data strategy, and straightthrough processing of life insurance applications. She previously served as Director of the Project Management Office, where she oversaw enterprise strategic initiatives reporting directly to executive leadership and grew the organization’s Agile and DevOps practices.
Amanda is widely recognized for building highperforming teams and organizational capabilities. She designed and launched a BusinessAnalyst Institute to develop core competencies across a broad network of analysts and established a companywide Business Analyst Community of Practice. She has also led strategic initiatives such as the creation of the company’s first FiveYear Strategic Plan anddevelopment of an enterprise project portfolio management model to align corporate and departmental priorities.
Her most notable accomplishment is leading the integration of strategic planning, portfolio management, and execution practices across the enterprise - enabling more effective prioritization, improved collaboration, and measurable gains in employee engagement, including contributing to the organizations' s recognition as a Gallup Great Workplace.
About the Event:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
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Diagnose organizational drag by identifying how cross-team dependencies, competing priorities, and decision-making outside the team slow delivery—without “rowing harder.”
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Apply the rowing crew model to design teams around people and value streams (not technical layers), with clearer ownership and fewer external dependencies.
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Reinforce Scrum ceremony purpose by linking planning, standups, demos, and retros to a shared “team rhythm,” improving alignment and execution quality.
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Improve story quality and flow using I.N.V.E.S.T. principles and practical story progression through a sprint (planning → development → testing → closure).
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Avoid common Agile anti-patterns (splitting stories across teams; vertical slicing that recreates silos) and adopt healthier approaches that keep delivery horizontal and team-based.
