Zaheer Ali

Zaheer A. Ali

I am an experienced researcher and product developer who has worked as a scientist, engineer, and manager. Over 17 years in technology working at LLNL, NASA, and other amazing research organizations I have helped secure our homeland, lead teams to produce critical products, and supported fundamental science. My training is as a physicist but my work has led me to do engineering or applied science and management more than pure research. In addition to my degree in physics I also am a PMP, CSM, CSPO, and CSD, with training in Six Sigma, Lean, and Change Management.

My Agile/Scrum journey began in 2006 with my first full time job outside of university. I was hired on as a scientist (physicist) and assigned to a group supporting nuclear implosion experiments at the National Ignition Facility, a part of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. My first task was to assist with simulations of detector response. My background in physics as well as my knowledge of computer programming led management to put me into a computational physics, or developer role for some time. The work there was done in a haphazard scrum fashion using timeboxed “development intervals,” in which functional code was expected to be completed. It was a good learning experience and solidified my standing in that community as I successfully transformed an old FORTRAN code into a Java application that was then able to, via patch code, interface with the supercomputer systems.

Subsequently, every organization I have worked for has attempted to be Agile and has used the some or all of the principles of the Agile Manifesto and portions of the Scrum framework, even if management did not embrace a complete transition. As a project manager and functional manager for National Security Technologies, I was trained and encourage to use Lean Agile methods. It was there that I began to develop a methodology to develop a translation between WBS entries and Product Backlog Items. At the same time, using certain postulates, I developed a method to translate Velocity into Earned Value. Scrum can survive inside of an EVMS Waterfall environment, but it needs to be isolated.

As a functional manager, I acted as the product owner and delegated scrum master duties to my lab manager, who was already team advocate. In this way I was able to bring a version of scrum into my organization, despite resistance from management to adopt true agile methods. While this was challenging it taught me how to encapsulate scrum within a traditional project management environment. By using tighter time boxes and incorporating greater feedback I was able to double product yield within a year. Using sprint reviews as a driver we developed testing systems for our various hardware increments. This further drove our ability to respond to input, both feedback and disruptive events, and to drive down technical debt.

It was at this time that I began formulating what I call “ScrumFall,” a method of encapsulating Scrum inside of Waterfall managed programs and projects, that is distinctly different from the typical “scrum-in-waterfall” anti-pattern that so many organizations adopt. Rather than try to adopt partial portions of scrum what is done is to create distinct controllable interfaces between the scrum and the waterfall portions, as well as 1-1 translations of metrics and milestones. This manner of forcing scrum into traditional organizations needs to be managed by someone who is knowledgeable and experienced in both scrum and traditional methods.

I am also somewhat of a MEMS expert, and in that capacity worked at AMFitzgerald, a small company run by Alissa Fitzgerald, a pre-eminent MEMS engineer. This company bridges the gap between the lab bench and the large scale foundry for entities that want to or have developed MEMS devices. Alissa acts as the product owner, and while I was there, her Senior Associate acted as scrum master. Along with other team members, we were a completely cross functional MEMS development team. As with other places where I have worked, scrum was not followed to the letter, but its principles were applied. We worked in tightly time boxed intervals where functional components or complete products had to be delivered to the customers. Simply put it was an exhilarating experience to work as a member of a group comprised of experts. The scrum ceremonies were observed with the more typical types of names such as product delivery review and team review. The product backlog was maintained as a simple list of things to get done, but to Alissa's credit she instinctively ordered them rather than ranked them by sheer priority and it was up to the team to pull in what they estimated could get done and then her job to manage customer expectations. While working at AMF I came to truly believe that if applied correctly, scrum could work for hardware development, not just software development. Based off of what I learned here, I found ways to apply it to my other work. 

When I moved to the NASA SOFIA program my worked changed from development of products to development of operations, another challenging application of agile and scrum. In this role, however, parts of the organization were already using elements of scrum. It was here that I learned how to use tools made for agile and scrum implementation such as JIRA and Confluence, and to do true spring planning, although we call it something different. By developing operations using scrum it we were able to imbed scrum into the operations. Thus, while our management is not committed to a full scrum implementation, those of us who are committed to agile methods found a way to build scrum into the way we do things. This has been critical to the success of the Science Mission Operations team as we work at the node where many portions of the program come together. The agility of our team in responding to change of every type has enabled us to deliver every time we are called upon.

Throughout my career I have published frequently and am author of more than 40 authored or co-authored papers as well as many technical presentations. The majority of my published work is in detection systems of nuclear radiation with additional publications in plasma physics, astronomy, and data analysis. As a point of interest, I am also published as a poet and in comparative literature.

Outside of work I am an avid fan of literature, particularly of history, historical fiction, and science fiction. I spend a great deal of time reading in the hopes of better understanding my world. Additionally, I am keenly interested in education, particularly in STEM education for students of disadvantaged backgrounds; having been one myself at one point. As our world changes so to must education, particularly at a time when automation, AI, and advanced biology are dramatically changing the world at a pace that is difficult with which to keep up.

Other hobbies include rock climbing, bicycling, brewing beer, and working on my ’77 vette.