In her role at NJVC, Elizabeth “Liz” Sampson wears several hats to help NJVC complete its mission-critical work. Liz is an Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Program Manager, Partner Manager, and an essential team member at NJVC.
As part of her partner manager role at NJVC, she manages their partnerships with Esri and Scaled Agile. With their Esri partnership, NJVC is part of the Federal Small Business Specialty Program. In addition to this program, we have a Master Services Agreement that allows us to work on task orders that come out under our contracts with them. Liz is currently working on developing our current partnership relationship, so NJVC will eventually be able to train employees on the Esri products.
With the Scaled Agile Partnership, Liz was able to become a certified Scaled Agile coach and trainer. This essential certification allows her to train our Chenega employees on the Scaled Agile process. She recently had to take a refresher class and exam to become a consultant at the 5.0 level, which allows her to teach the Scaled Agile Business Agility program. Unlike the other programs, the Business Agility program is not about software development. It takes the Agile principles and helps class participants apply them to other aspects of the business to save time and resources.
Liz and her fellow Agile Coach, Clayton Smith, currently teach Scaled Agile classes to NJVC employees around the world. Typically, employees fly in for an intensive two-day in-person training class. However, due to the COVID crisis, Scaled Agile allowed a few modifications to their program. Liz and Clayton are helping to pilot these program changes and are teaching the class virtually to employees around the world so NJVC can stay up to date with their training and certifications.
Right now, the majority of the training is provided to NJVC and Chenega employees. Liz is currently working on upgrading our partnership with Scaled Agile, so NJVC will have the ability to expand our class offerings to the public.
Liz likes working with teams and people. After teaching fourteen years as Adjunct Faculty in Louisiana and Virginia, she loves that her position allows her to teach again since it is one of her passions. She believes “we need to stay current in our domain or we can’t compete.” Wholeheartedly, Liz believes in the principles of what she teaches and aspires to create a culture around continuous learning.
In her personal life, Liz is a wife, mother, and avid quilter. However, she has switched from making quilts to joining thousands of quilters and sewists around the world, in making masks for essential workers to help with the mask shortage during the COVID crisis. On behalf of Chenega MIOS, thank you, Liz, for all that you do for NJVC and the essential workers during this crisis.