Lead Scrum Trainer, Lead Dysfunction Mapping Trainer, Business Lead, Marketing Lead, Website Creator, Content Creator...I do almost everything around here :)

As a small business owner, I understand the difficulties of deciding what to focus on next. I struggle with Value-Based Prioritization and Technical Dependency Ordering, just like every Product Owner. Since 2018, I've trained and certified thousands of Certified ScrumMasters and Certified Scrum Product Owners. Because of my focus on Scrum Mastery, I also train Scrum Masters through the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster, and Certified Scrum Professional - Scrum Master classes. All of this, and I love my job!Beginning in 2020, I started offering free individual coaching to all of my former students - for life! Classes went virtual during the pandemic and have not turned back to mainstream in-person teaching, yet. So, offering to meet any student virtually makes sense, especially since I am usually their first Scrum Trainer - I should back up my instruction with coaching.Since 2013, when I became an Agile Coach, I've coached more than 100 Scrum and Kanban teams, scores of organizational leaders, and hundreds of ScrumMasters and Product Owners.My facilitation super power is lies with the Retrospective. As an independent consultant I have facilitated Sprint, Quarterly, Semi-annual and Annual Retrospectives for 15 companies. I still receive many thanks for the revelations from those Retrospective organizational leaders participated in over 10 years ago!

Podcasting Agile discussions that tie back to the Chicago Agile community.

Classes I teach:Certified Scrum Master (CSM)Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)Fundamentals of Enterprise ScrumFundamentals of ScrumFundamentals of Kanban SystemsCertified Business Agility Coach (CBAC)Kanban SystemsAgile Boot CampFundamentals of Product Ownership

ScrumMaster:Acting as an interim servant leader for a new Scrum Team, I facilitated Scrum events, quickly resolved team members' impediments, championed continual improvement, trained and advised product owners, and new ScrumMasters.Agile Coach:As a member of the Agile Working Team, I worked on and with an extremely talented team of leaders within Allstate to develop standards for transitioning new Scrum teams from Waterfall, as well as standardizing how they will operate while they are still becoming self-organizing. As an Agile Coach for development teams, I work with team members, ScrumMasters, Product Owners, and stakeholders to insure that everyone is working with the Agile Principles and Values in mind.

While acting in the role of the Scrum Master for one software development team (facilitating Scrum ceremonies, helping to remove impediments, resolving conflicts among and between teams and team members, and championing continuous improvement), I mentor other Scrum Masters and help new Product Owners to adapt to their new roles. I also confer with management to insure that the company's efforts to become more aligned, at all levels, with the Agile Mindset are on track. I attend Scrum of Scrums meetings and have begun work on instituting Communities of Practice focused on several domains.

As part of a team of passionate Agile Coaches, I assisted in the Agile adoption of Capital One's development teams. We are implementing Scrum, and Kanban in the SAFe framework.This engagement includes non-certification based training in Scrum Basics, User Story Writing, Kanban Process, and Process Flow Mapping; role coaching (Scrum Master, BSA and Product Owner); Agile practices education and coaching; Agile (XP) engineering practices coaching; ceremony facilitation; thought leadership/collaboration.

Agile CoachAs an Agile Coach I have taught various classes, to include the Intermediate Product Owner, Scrum For Teams, Scrum Master Essentials and Intermediate Scrum Master classes. I have also led the Basic User Story, Intermediate User Story, Advanced Acceptance Criteria, and Kanban Integration workshops. I have coached and advised Scrum and Kanban teams on processes, information radiators, ceremonies, conflict resolution, team unity/cohesion and risk mitigation. To heighten the company’s level of trust and open communication, I have led What You Need (WYN) sessions between management and their direct reports.Scrum Master - Enterprise Integration TeamsAs a Scrum Master of multiple teams, I guided team members new to Scrum, coached fellow team members and mentored new/burgeoning Scrum Masters, facilitated Review, Planning, Retrospective, Backlog Grooming, Release Inspect & Adapt meetings, and represented the teams during Release Cycle Planning sessions.Retrospective LeaderI have become one of the resident experts in Inspect & Adapt / Agile Retrospectives. Since becoming an authority on Retrospectives, I have conducted/facilitated such sessions for many teams within Nokia. I have taken my talent for helping teams inspect and adapt outside Nokia and demonstrated its worth to small upstarts.Agile Team Member QA As an Agile team member I planned, developed, executed and automated tests for an Agile Scrum R&D project.

As partner, co-founder, and co-organizer of the East Coast's largest free furniture exposition, I helped cultivate an exhibitor base, build a large online following, and provide the show with exceptional crowd-drawing talent.This non-profit's goal is to promote up-and-coming furniture makers, acquaint them with custom furniture enthusiasts/buyers, and educate the public about quality and custom furniture.During my time with 1in6 Design, we grew our expo attendance almost 100% year over year 2009 - 2013.

Podcast: A podcast for beginning woodworkers, by beginning woodworkers. Making the craft less intimidating and less ambiguous.Non-Profit: The Sawdust Chronicles Specifically is actively involved in providing local youth organizations such as the Boy/Girl/Cub Scouts, Park District programs, grade schools, 4-H Youth Development Programs, etc with instruction, materials, plans and the temporary use of tools, for the purpose of learning/teaching about woodworking.

The Splintered Board Podcast provides approximately 3000 listeners (as of September 2009) with a regular update on my adventures in being a beginning woodworker with the goal of becoming an accomplished furniture designer and recognized woodworker.

Quality Assurance professional with 12+ years experience in manual testing, developing proprietary automated tools, writing test plans and test scripts in such industries as ERP/CRM, Energy Distribution, Securities Trading.

As a Senior Engineer, I have been a contributing developer, creating a Python-based automated test system to verify exchange gateways before they are deployed.As a Quality Engineer, I was a leading developer and contributing architect to a VB.NET-based test automation system that verified an API used by customers to create custom front-ends for automated trading applications.

ExelonCreated test approach, test procedure, and test matrix documents for a wide area power network grid management system. Executed test procedures and data verification. Led project meetings with client developers. Hyperfeed Inc. Assisted in the development of a custom automation test tool that utilized DOS batch scripts, VB Scripts, and Excel VBA scripts. Integrated BeyondCompare with the test tool to generate HTML diff files. Created data sets to test external exchanges (OPRA, SIAC) and internal processing (ETI). Examined client’s current C++ code line-by-line to report on all of the properties of each object in their object model.Internal Training - Completed Mercury Interactive LoadRunner skill-building course. Completed training tutorials for Rational’s ClearQuest and RequisitePro. Studied Suse Linux 9.1 OS.

Developed and maintained 1000’s of VBS-based unit tests. Led process reviews with project manager. Excelled as the sole QA Analyst supporting a development team of 10-12 programmers. Created and managed a VBA-based custom Outlook defect tracking application. Authored release documentation, minimum technical requirements, installation documentation, and troubleshooting guides. Evaluated web-based R&D efforts. Created and executed functional and regression test plans. Performed ad-hoc testing on prototype web applications. Served as liaison between customers and developers to facilitate customers’ needs during future product enhancement meetings. Designed and maintained an XML-based test harness for a web-based product. Interdepartmental Training – Trained 25 developers, consultants and managers on a custom Outlook defect tracking application. Designed and coded new VBS-based sample data catalogs, scripts, and AutoCAD toolbars used in new customer training courses.

Labor Resource Manager – Met daily with the development team to design and implement manual test plans. Created and implemented all test plans. Conducted on-site software and hardware usage training courses for new customers. Presented future version enhancements to current customers at annual user group conferences. Provided first, second and third-line support to customers via telephone, email and fax. Managed all databases for customer calls, product bug fixes, releases and product shipping log.Interdepartmental Training – Conducted in-house training on new hardware for peer employees and software developers.

Perform soils density tests, soils analysis, manual and automated ground surveying, manual and computer aided drafting (CAD).

10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Intercept, translate, analyze foreign military communications. Brief command on current regional situations and threat analysis. Participate in SOT-A and SOT-B (Special Operation Team - Alpha/Bravo) team activities/training.Security Clearance: Top Secret - SCI (1992 - 1999)