Toronto, Ontario, Canada
As an agile coach, I have been helping people, teams, and organizations generate value through evolved solutions for complex problems for over 18 years. I have multiple certifications in agile frameworks, such as Scrum, LeSS, and Scrum@Scale, and I have developed my own model of agile adoption, called Agility Elements, based on my client work from 2015 to 2020. I have also mastered the art of remote coaching and training, using various tools and platforms to deliver engaging and effective learning experiences to my clients across multiple time zones. I have created micro-learning modules, video presentations, and learning management systems to teach agile principles and practices. I have coached several teams and business units at RBC, one of Canada's largest banks, to visualize their work, adopt lean and agile methods, and improve their performance. I am passionate about empowering people and organizations to achieve their goals and deliver value to their customers.
Services *Agile coaching *Applying agility for business results Remote coaching and training Because of the constraints of COVID on in-person training and coaching I researched using alternate delivery channels for training: • Micro-learning using TalentCards o Delivered via mobile devices o Includes testing to reinforce content • Video presentations using Adobe Spark and Prezi o 30 second – 2 minutes o Combined text and video • Learning Management Systems (LMS) Agility Elements – what can I do to be more agile? Based on client work 2015-2020 I developed a model to help clients adopt agile practices, named Agility Elements (https://agility.elements.help). The basis for the work is the most frequently asked question “what can I do to be more agile?”. Agility Elements can be used for: • Assessing individual agile behavior • Synthesizing novel agile practice • Creating training for agile practices Strategic OKR service development with Business Agility Consulting Group (BACG) (https://businessagilityconsultinggroup.com/) BACG is an offshoot of AgilityHealth and offers clients customized business consulting based on agile principles and practices. Because of COVID many firms now want to realign their businesses. I contributed, as part of a team of agile coaches, to developing BACG’s Strategic OKR service to help with business alignment. (https://businessagilityconsultinggroup.com/solutions/strategic-delivery-okrs/). Presenter, Agile Ontario Meetups (an Agile Alliance Community) Agile Frameworks For Pleasure And Profit, Jan 2020 https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Ontario/events/267677290/ Genesis Of A Game, Oct 2019 https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Ontario/events/265236520/
Coached NBA team from Jun 2022 - Jun 2023 - Establish agile coaching goals for NBA work - Observation of NBA teams - Recommendations on refining team practices to achieve increased agility - Analysis of existing work practices - Identify matrix organization as an impediment to agile adoption - Provide steps to differentiate predictable and changeable work Coached RBC's Mobile organization from Jul 2021 - Jun 2022 - Observation of Mobile's teams - As one of a pair of agile coaches; coaching for team members to standup a new mobile team - Office Hours to make agile coaching available to the Mobile organization As a member of RBC's Digital Agile Coaching Practice (DACP): - Collaborate with other agile coaches to define how agile coaching is applied - Propose the Better Value Sooner, Safer, Happier (BVSSH) mindset for RBC's agile transformation
I was an agile coach working within RBC’s Performance Enablement & Program Delivery (PEPD) group. I was a member of a PEPD’s agile coaching team with specific responsibility for coaching staff from RBC’s Personal Financing Products (PFP) and Personal Savings and Investments (PSI) lines of business (LOB). The results of my agile coaching were: • Rolled-out Enterprise Business Agility (EBA) to senior managers and staff • Defined agile adoption roadmaps for PFP and PSI • Coached 16 business teams to visualize their work using Kanban boards • Coached 4 teams to use Leankit/Planview electronic Kanban boards • Consulted and contributed to PEPD’s agile adoption strategy
Summary Iconoclast’s mission is “.. challenge existing thinking and practices of software development to achieve markedly improved performance and results.” Iconoclast’s work is defining and answering the hard questions. What behaviors encourage agility? (https://www.iconoclast.consulting/our-thinking/what-behaviors-encourage-agility) This work is a precursor to Agility Elements and explores the building blocks of agile practice. Project metrics (https://www.iconoclast.consulting/our-thinking/project-metrics) A frequent question is what project metrics can we use with agile projects. This article describes applicable metrics and describes how they can be measured. C code to Rust transpiler project, project Rawkus (https://github.com/RobertMacGregor/rawkus) C code has become a de facto standard for systems programming and beyond, and its use is widespread. Although the C language has evolved it has introduced failure mechanisms into code from embedded systems to air traffic control, banking, and safety critical systems. The Rust language offers a more stringent environment for code development that results in safer runtime behavior. Converting the World’s large code base of C code to Rust has become desirable. Project Rawkus provides an automated translation of C code to Rust. Current progress has achieved a C compiler for C11 (Antlr) that outputs into a graph database (Tinkerpop). The next step is Rust code generation, from data in the graph database, using rules and heuristics.
In this role I coached and guided EPAM's clients and development teams on agile practice. I lead EPAM's Global Agile Competency Center (ACC) and set the vision and standards for agile coaching within EPAM. I collaborated with my team, and other teams within EPAM, to scale the ACC's operation to match EPAM's increase in staff from 16,000 to 30,000. Because EPAM's business was growing I shifted our focus from a centrally organised unit to a distributed model. *Proposals and Engagements defined in terms of qualitative and quantitative business outcomes *Standardized and globalized hiring. Grew interviewer pool to 50 people while maintaining interview quality *Formalized the Scrum Master role within EPAM *Answered one agile-related question/day from EPAM's staff with a 4.8/5 CSAT *Grew EPAM's internal & external agile communities *Anticipated demand for agile@scale and trained staff in LeSS, Scrum@Scale and SAFe *Managed agile coaches from China, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Switzerland, USA, Canada and Mexico **Machine learning/Opensource I defined goals for an open-source research effort (EPAM Contribute) applying machine learning to agile practices; specifically selecting backlog items, planning, generating tests from acceptance criteria and creating code. **Mergers and acquisitions I identified a potential company acquisition for EPAM based on my roadmap for growth of EPAM's agile consulting business. Among the many questions I answered in my role: What role do managers have during and after an agile transformation? What can an agile contract look like? What metrics can be meaningfully applied to agile projects? What can I do to be more agile? How can Jira be used with agile teams? What role can machine learning have on an agile project?
Client: Agile coaching for a $7 Billion/year truck leasing business in the USA Creating and pitching a solution to the client Hands-on agile coaching & training of staff and client's agile coach Initial Assessment of the business's software dev practices Recommendation to use 2 proof-of-concept (POC) teams to experiment with agile practices Objectives 1. Increasing sales by reducing communication inefficiency with sales teams and vehicle preparation 2. Regulatory compliance 3. Reduce costs for external free warranties and assists customers with post-sale issues 4. Establishing presence in the marketplace via mobile application 5. Rapid response to changing customer demands Results 1. Better alignment between IT and business 2. Improved ability to comply with state and federal regulations via a maintenance table built for multiple Bills of Sale in Online fleet management 3 • $4.5MM ROI saved from the elimination of free warranty upon the BOS language is complete • Reduced expenses of lawyer fees and court costs • Better customer experience due to clear expectations, reduced post-sale issues, and consistent sale processes • Higher quality output through use of a definition-of-done and acceptance criteria 4. Reduced time to market - from 67 days down to 44 days (34% reduction) 5 • More control over the work for the Process owners, questions get answered sooner to satisfy rapidly changing customer demands • Number of agile teams expanded from 2 to 12 within 12 months.