Biography
My name is Simon Brayshaw, I have been a Scrum Master since 2009 and in Jan 2011 became a Scrum Certified Scrum Master.
My certification was a bit of an eye-opener for me, as although I read numerous books and articles, it wasn't until I attended a course by Nigel Baker that it all clicked into place. Following the course, my real journey into the world of agility began.
In 2012, after speaking to a colleague and friend (Nigel Steane) we decided that the Scrum/Agile community in the West Midlands was just not strong enough, especially when compared to the activities occurring in London, so we decided to setup the Heart of England Scrum User Group. Since binging the community together I have found it to be a great place to flex our scrum muscles and learn new initiatives to drive our teams to further success.
More recently my career has changed direction and I spend a lot of time on the Product Ownership side of Scrum now. This doesn't mean that I don't like to keep up to speed with movements in the Scrum Mastery area and I still spend time working with Scrum Masters to find new innovative ways to improve team performance and efficiency.
I also have a strong passion for agile engineering and love reading up on and practicing TDD, BDD, ATDD etc.
Work experience
ASOS.com, Development Manager
May 2013 - Present, Birmingham, United Kingdom
This position requires that I manage the team and development lifecycle in an "Agile" way which leads to fast, high quality, collaboratively-generated product delivery.
This is completed by deploying appropriate development methods including fast, flexible, modular development (e.g. Scrum) as well as structured development (e.g. Waterfall) aligned with the nature of the projects, the level of complexity involved and the variety and stability of the business requirements.
Pinewood Technologies PLC, Scrum Master
April 2009 - May 2013, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom
I am currently the Team Leader and Scrum Master for two highly experienced and productive development teams. One dealing in CRM Software and other in Stock Management, Accounts and Management Dashboarding. Along with the other Pinewood Scrum Masters, I have initiated the Pinewood "Scrumish to Scrum" Project. This aims to firstly purify our Scrum approach and then to encourage continuous departmental improvement rather than simply isolated team improvement.