Alistair Todd

Alistair Todd is an agile Java specialist with more than 15 years experience in agile software development with Java, Scrum and XP. He is a certified Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Developer, and Agile Practitioner.

He first discovered Agile from the excellent book Extreme Programming Explained, by Kent Beck, in 1999 while working in a traditional waterfall environment where C++ was the language of choice. It was a moment of revelation that quickly led him to become the technical lead for a new project using XP, the first agile and also the first Java project in the organisation. Immediate success and the massive enjoyment that came from working in a way that enabled rapid progress and delivery of real value led to a passion for the agile way that has never left him.

He's spent the rest of his career so far immersing himself in all aspects of agile and spreading the values, principles and practices wherever he goes.

As well as specialising in the development side, gaining expertise in TDD. BDD, continuous integration, pair prgramming, evolutionary design and so on, he has spent a great deal of time working with developers, scrum masters and product owners to improve agile practices and increase team performance.

In numerous engagements with organisations new to agile, he has mentored and assisted scrum masters and product owners, and coached development teams in the ways of Scrum. Though a developer at heart, he often fills in as Scrum Master where needed, usually works very closely with Product Owners, and has helped train analysts and project managers into the Scurm Master or Product Owner role in organisations new to agile.

Alistair never stops learning by reading about agile, living agile day-to-day on projects, blogging, and attending agile conferences and meet ups. He is a member of various meet-ups and user groups including Agile Yorkshire, Agile North East, Agile Sheffield, Lean Agile Manchester and Leeds Code Dojo.

One of Alistair's proudest moments was after a successful agile pilot project under the watchful eye of the very talented and experienced agile development leader Tony Stansfield, who said:

"Alistair has delivered superb results for us in our first foray as a company into agile development. He has in-depth knowledge of agile delivery and set our team (both technical and business people) up in a very short space of time to understand agile and to begin working using agile techniques to deliver real business value at the end of their first 3 week sprint. He is a fantastic coach, excellent Scrum Master and has great Java development skills. If you want to start a team off on the road to agile development, I can't recommend Alistair highly enough."

Alistair is:

• Chartered IT Professional
• Certified Scrum Master at Scrum Alliance
• Certified Professional Scrum Master at scrum.org
• Certified Professional Scrum Product Owner at scrum.org
• Certified Professional Scrum Developer at scrum.org
• PMI Agile Certified Practitioner
• Member of BCS, IPSE, PMI, AEA
• TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect
• Certified Java Programmer for Java 5, 6, 7, 8
• Certified Java Web Component Developer and Business Component Developer
• OMG Certified UML Professional
• Blog author at cleantestcode.com
• Creator of the open-source EasyMockRule
• Contributor of annotation support to the excellent EasyMock open-source project
• Creator of the open-source Custom View Tabs plugin for Jenkins
• Published author
• Round-the-world adventure motorcyclist
• Survivor of severe traumatic brain injury

See the ultimate adventure travel guide at https://toseethe.world