Serving a great company as they deepen the partnership between IT, business partners, and end customers.

http://leadinggreatteams.com/Leading Great Teams focuses on building high-performance organizations of professionals and knowledge workers. Working with executives, managers, and teams, I provide interactive training, proven facilitation, and challenging/supportive coaching to move teams from stuck to smooth. Engaged with GMFinancial, providing direct support for executives and teams undergoing an agile transformation. Previously worked with Xyngular, a Utah-based health products company on a long-term, enterprise agile transformation. Providing training to employees and the leadership team; ongoing coaching and mentoring for executives, directors, and PMO; and mentoring targeted individuals to prepare them for growth opportunities. Past services included facilitating company-wide planning meetings and facilitation training. Previously worked with Toyota Motors, assisting a software team during a SAP implementation program. Leading the team to add more agile practices while working cooperatively within a large program environment. Previously worked with American Airlines, provided enterprise coaching, program facilitation, team coaching and guidance for their Agile and DevOps transformation across 3,000+ IT employees and contractors. Coached program managers to successfully facilitate PI events (ala SAFe) for teams-of-teams. Introduced product management framework and concepts including OKRs and Impact Mapping. Mentored agile and devops coaches as they deepened skills in coaching, training, and facilitation.

As a speaker, my goal is to be engaging and entertaining. I love sharing my enthusiasm with others before, during, and after the event. If you are looking to give your audience the chance to leave uplifted and enabled, please don't hesitate to reach out. A list of recent presentations follows:Agile Alliance* Feedback Jujitsu, Agile2018* Hunting for Diamonds, Agile2018* Simple Steps for Leading Great Teams, Agile2016* Doomed to Fail, Agile2014* Using ATDD to Build Customers That Care, Agile2014* Impact Mapping: Delivering What Matters, Agile2013* Super Duper Fast Domain Modeling, Agile2013Agilepalooza* Writing Better User Stories, Nov 2014Grace Hopper Celebration* Day in the Life, Oct 2014University of Texas at Dallas Project Management Symposium, Dallas, TX* Multitasking vs Critical Chain, Aug 2015* Breakthrough Project Performance, Aug 2014* Blow-up the Iron Triangle, Aug 2013Scrum Alliance * Deliver What Matters with Impact Mapping, ScrumGatheringNewOrleans, May 2014Business Analyst World * Dallas: Impact Mapping, Feb 2015* Moncton, NB: From Average to Promoted (Closing Keynote), Nov 2014* Victoria, ALB: Consulting Secrets, Oct 2014* Atlanta: How Tiny Examples Will Save Our Requirements, Mar 2014* Dallas: Consulting Secrets for Business Analysts, Feb 2014* Boston: How to Improve Your Project with Tiny Stories, Oct 2013* Toronto, ONT: Bingo! Behavior Based Requirements, May 2013International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)* Dallas: How to Build Better Process Flows, Sept 2014* Central Iowa: Improve Your Project with Tiny Stories, Dec 2013* Minn / St. Paul: How to Use Behavior Based Requirements to Build Understanding and Save Your Project, May 2013Mix-IT, Lyon France* Consulting Secrets for Effective Communication, Apr 2014Building Business Capabilities* Las Vegas: Open Space Facilitator, Nov 2013* Fort Lauderdale: Using BDD and Feature Injection to Build Better Software, Nov 2011

I provide training, consulting, and coaching for organizations seeking to radically expand and improve their ability to deliver high-quality, valuable software. Selected examples: • Providing primary training and coaching expertise to integrate software teams of corporate acquisitions. • Coaching management, contributing teams, and individuals in a division of Fortune 50 corporation leading to a 500% improvement in project velocity with agile and SAFe®.• Guided business process discovery initiative as part of $400MM program. Introduced portfolio management techniques with business leaders. • Facilitating leadership discussions for structuring a new Strategic PMO within a Fortune 100 corporation. • Training and coaching both software development and data analytics teams at Harvard University and other clients.

Serving as a specialist-leader for business analysts, I mentored and developed the talents of internal- and client-staff. Represented the North American practice globally and regionally with leadership and other practice leads.As a consultant I was requested as a troubleshooter when large agile projects were trouble and sensitive clients needed attention. Selected examples: • Project rescue for Energy Industry client in the midst of a 3-year, data intensive project to build a pipeline management system. Introduced Behavior Driven Development (BDD) for ~200% improvement in velocity.• Coach for Fortune 200 Insurance client on greenfield, client-facing website displaying policyholder information in a pilot agile project. • Lead analyst for Fortune 200 Airline client website resulting from an airline merger. Introduced BDD for automated functional testing.

Responsible for gathering high-level requirements for rearchitecting processing and data layers of primary platform, resulting in a single, scalable application for use by staff and customers world-wide. Assisted in growth of Business Analyst team through coaching, template development, and sharing best practices.via Ensynch

I was brought in to introduce a consultant-class level of requirements & testing, growing team from 21 staff over 4 years. Introduced scrum to facilitate speed (~100% increase in velocity), understanding, and focus for business partners and project teams. Introduced development operations (DevOps) to reduce risk and accelerate value delivery (~80% reduction in release effort and defects). As part of the Office of Strategy Management, I facilitated leaders and executives to develop and prioritize corporate and departmental strategy, established corporate strategic vision communications, and coached and tracked simultaneous strategic projects. With a common vision, comprehensive strategy, and consistent communication we achieved a 20% increase in enrollments.

Developing use cases, detailed software requirements, traceability, project documentation, test cases, and user documentation.Instituting the procedures necessary to ensure business goals are captured and communicated before a project is started, along with the tools necessary to ensure the results delivered meet the business objectives. Training and mentoring of client employees to document business requirements and ensure delivered products meet goals. Working with "Fortune 100" and other clients including: Dell, Raytheon, eBay, Universal Technical Institute (UTI)

Creating niche businesses to meet the needs of local communities.PARTY BLOCKS: Company specializing in providing engaging and entertaining activities for children.LONE STAR GAMES: Retail outlet at Galleria ~ Dallas and Stonebriar Centre ~ Frisco, providing casino quality poker chips gaming supplies for the home player.

Planned and directed strategic and tactical aspects of this sales company ($7-10M annual sales), focused on selling furniture and home accessories to qualified retail outlets of Bassett Furniture and Flexsteel. Established an outside sales organization with national footprint. Introduced an integrated accounting and CRM package, allowing multiple departments to be reengineered for efficient service to customers and clients. Improved cash flow and eliminated operational losses.

This series of start-up companies encompassed a manufacturer of window treatments, and import/export company, and a company selling the window treatments directly to the consumer via direct marketing catalog.

Responsible for accounting, administration, facility maintenance, inventory control, and purchasing at the Chicago International Teleport (CIT). The teleport is a satellite uplink facility and was then responsible distribution of television and radio signals along with a majority of the paging industry.