Lynn Woody

Lynn Woody - A Certified Scrum Master(CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner(CSPO),  PMP-ACP and SixSigma Green Belt with experience in both Application Product development & Project Management on wide variety of business applications & domains. Currently a Scrum of Scrums (Release Train Manager) coordinating 16 scrum teams in 4 different locations. Passion is to help teams to look up and collaborate.

I was given a great opportunity within John Deere in 2012 to solve a problem with large waterfall projects clobbering each other when we release work within our Crop Insurance systems. I approached the problem by interviewing all roles (business and IT) to see where their pain points were. I also interviewed externally to see how other companies were solving this large projects impacting other projects problem. The surveys were followed up with a full day workshop of all roles represented as well as levels of management from both business and IT. At the end of the day, our solution was found - we were ready to go agile! We sequestered 2 pilot teams and within 6 months we had 9 teams going. My role was leading the teams through this change (scrum of scrums) and helping to educate and get our road blocks and hindering systems revised for our new way of thinking and working. This took managing up, laterally and coaching teams. John Deere Crop Insurance became the leader in the way we worked at John Deere Financial, showing other areas how it could be done.

I've moved into another area within John Deere Financial, as our Crop Insurance business was sold off. The biggest challenge to the transition to agile is showing people who have succeeeded in delivering in the past, that if they really do change how they work, they can succeed even more.