Brent Barton  has passion for Agile and Scrum and coaches and trains others to work with these effective techniques.

“Your guidance has really helped us with this project and I believe kicked off Scrum successfully in the local search team. Your personal involvement beyond the legal/contract boundaries to help us through was phenomenal, thanks again!” Srishti Sofat of InfoSpace says of Brent.

Having successfully implemented Scrum at SolutionsIQ, reorganizing the Professional Services department using this methodology and doubling the revenue of Professional Services, Brent continues to work as both a consultant and a mentor on multiple projects internal and external to SolutionsIQ. 

Brent tries to bring a pragmatic nature to Scrum, helping various organizations find the interpretation of Scrum that is most appropriate to them. “I shine best,” says Brent, “when I’m making ordered chaos out of just plain chaos.”

Brent doesn’t believe Scrum is about solving chaos, but about controlling it just enough to get the job done; too much control defeats the natural entropy that allows for creativity in a constructed environment. In an effort to pass on this knowledge and experience, Brent is very active in the Agile Alliance and the Agile Project Leadership Network. 

Graduating from San Jose State with a degree in Mathematics and a focus on Computer Science, Brent certified in Scrum in 2004 and as a Scrum Trainer in 2005. Brent has trained over 500 people in the effective Agile practice.

Brent and colleagues recently published a paper, Agile EVM (Earned Value Management) in order to better rank Scrum’s advantages in a cost/benefit way with other methodologies. The paper was presented and published to the Agile 2006 Conference. 

A combination of both technical and leadership roles have shaped Brent’s fifteen years of software development experience. Intel was the location where Brent first gained experience with Agile; his first project incorporating Agile practices is still running, 7 years later. Brent has also done work for a range of clients from the National Basketball Association to Microsoft.