A Breadth of Application Software Industry Experience
Financial Services
Financial Services
Financial Services
Energy
Financial Services
Financial Services
Technology
Financial Services
Health Care
Health Care
Financial Services
Health Care
Clear Benefits
Predictable Cost
Operational Continuity
Operational Continuity
For a low corp-to-corp rate I will work directly with your most challenging teams.
The meter only runs while I am working with your teams either in a group setting or in a 1-on-1 with a teammate.
All of these kinds of "hands-on" interactions will be approved by you in the action plan we agree to up front.
I do not charge to meet with you or anyone else at the program level to discuss the progress being made, or how I can better serve your firm.
Operational Continuity
Operational Continuity
Operational Continuity
We'll start with the team's existing schedule - there is no need to take up valuable coding time with new meetings. If you want, I can start facilitating team meetings right away, but it is not required.
If you already have a team member serving as a "scrum master" or similar role, I can join the team as a non-directive consultant and mentor the team as well as the scrum master.
Let's keep your teams working - I will engage directly with them as they go about the business of performing the work that has been brought to them.
We'll fix this plane while it's flying.
A Realistic and Pragmatic Approach
A Realistic and Pragmatic Approach
A Realistic and Pragmatic Approach
Most Agile practitioners hold a dim view of Waterfall. "It's great for building a bridge but not for software." That is 100% true, but flexibility is required. Here's a hint at the way I approach this challenge:
If Product Management brings an important high-level capability/feature to the Development group and an agreement is reached to fund the conversion of that vision into an "MVP" solution by a certain date, a waterfall mentality will soon surround that project.
From the perspective of the product owner, that date on the calendar is an area of focus every day, and the Dev team will become acutely aware of it, strengthening waterfall mentality.
This is natural and fully understandable.
As an experienced Lean-Agile practitioner, I would embrace this challenge at the team level and adjust accordingly with these two Lean-Agile coaching tactics:
1. Gentle but firm scope control based on simplicity and the constant vigilance to avoid "gold-plating."
2. Frequent system demos (especially if the solution is large enough to require more than one team to build it) to reduce the risk of production defects that famously plague waterfall projects.
These two tactics are proven winners I will make sure they are utilized for the benefit of your project.
Establishing Best Practices
A Realistic and Pragmatic Approach
A Realistic and Pragmatic Approach
In addition to the Lean-Agile activities normally associated with Scrum, there are proven tactics and practices that I will promote each and every opportunity, with your buy-in.
From my personal experience, these practices are highly correlative to successful teams:
- Stable rosters (no people-splitting)
- Paired Programming or Paired Work.
- "Swarming" on difficult work items
- Cross-functional team members (steady elimination of "Silo'd" Skill sets)
- Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Development OR Automated Regression test suites covering 85% of all function points delivered to Production
- Routine System Demos that involve more than one workflow step in the larger system
These practices are not universally supported, and not every team is a good fit to attempt them, so you and I will agree up front which of these proposed practices can be realistically attempted, and which ones are better introduced to the team later on.