Agile Coach at Agilex
Chantilly, VA
United States
www.agilex.com
December 2012-Present

Agile Coach for clients in the government sector. Currently working with a team of Agile Coaches at a State agency, focusing on implementing continuous improvement practices at the portfolio level.

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Agile Coach at CollabNet
Portland, OR
United States
http://www.collab.net/
December 2011-December 2012

I develop and deliver comprehensive training sessions that educate customers on agile values and practices. I listen to the myriad questions customers raise about how to enact agile practices and help guide them to a potential starting point for implementing Scrum. I find Scrum to be the most effective pathway for teams and organizations to discover and benefit from agile practices. My approach to Scrum is to present it as a framework to problem-solve, rather than manage. I teach the concept of embracing agile values as the goal to an agile transformation, rather than a perfect implementation of process. Full-time Scrum Team Member since joining the CollabNet Training team in 2011.

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Account Manager Sales and Services at Danube
Portland, Oregon 97221
United States
www.danube.com
September 2007-December 2011

My role, at Danube (acquired by CollabNet in Feb. 2011) included both selling our agile tool, ScrumWorks Pro and selling our Scrum training services. In both capacities I learned why agile, how agile and most importantly, how NOT to “go agile.” In my four years in this role, I talked with customers all over the map, from household names in the technology business, to start-ups, government agencies , web service companies and even manufacturing. I learned that every company, large or small, has more in common than they are unique. I learned that organizational problems primarily stem from people problems. I learned that people’s behavior has more impact on a project’s success than any technical difficulty currently surrounding the problem. After spending hundreds of hours on the phone and in-person with prospective and existing clients, I learned that agile is mainstream and has become a worldwide business objective, but companies have no idea how to get there. I had the opportunity to witness true agile success and serious failure at all kinds of organizations. I learned what works and what doesn’t. Commitment to change is key. Danube implemented Scrum in every aspect of the company, from the development team to the sales team. As a sales team member, we worked in 1-week sprints, in which sales initiatives were written as user stories and maintained in a backlog, managed by our Product Owner. We agreed that 50% of our time would be allocated to unforeseen customer needs and client research each sprint. We knew from the outset that opportunities and interruptions would be a significant aspect of every sprint. We also knew that if we didn’t spend time examining our practices and customer interactions we wouldn’t grow as a company. We held team retrospectives every week, and longer retrospectives with business stakeholders, quarterly to examine direction. The sales team regularly attended the development team's sprint review's in order to share feedback we heard from customers. Full time Scrum Team Member for 4 years.

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Project Manager - Jumbo Lending Marketing at JPMorgan Chase
Portland, Oregon 97221
United States

May 2002-September 2007

Project Manager for large-size lending (Jumbo) group serving Oregon and Washington. I developed and executed marketing initiatives to capitalize on a growing network of clients in need of large-lending services in the area. Planned initiatives and negotiated budgets between the VP in Oregon and headquarters in New York. Implemented several online marketing initiatives (email newsletters, landing pages, banner ads, etc.) increasing web presence from essentially zero web representation in the area in 2002 to a significant increase in search results.

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Project Manager, Assistant Website Producer at RedChip.com
Portland, Oregon 97221
United States

January 1998-April 2001

Responsible for creating web content for a financial research start-up, that had been successful in print publication and was looking to expand reach. I managed projects that turned existing material into categories of educational content customers could access online. I researched and wrote original content for the website and eventually moved to the web production team, responsible for creating and posting banner ads, creating the weekly newsletter and managing the database of recipients. True to start-up nature, I also assisted production of the weekly radio program, conducting customer interviews, editing clips and posting radio content on the website.

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