Cameron Waugh, MBA

Cameron Waugh is a critical thinking, highly observant, leadership professional with diverse experience in fortune 500, start-up, merger and acquisition, and turn-around environments.  As one focused on challenging the fear of failure, his observant nature and passion for continuous and never ending improvement has led to a reputation of challenging himself and others to step outside their comfort zone and challenge the perceived safety that exists within the status quo.  Cameron has proven results in leading teams through new processes, environments, and structure change, while still meeting the needs and expectations of the organization.  As an athlete and former collegiate baseball player, Cameron recognizes the value that a great coach can provide teams. Having been a part of teams that underperformed with high talent, and had great success with minimal talent, he noticed the key difference in those teams was leadership and how they connected with the team.  These experiences stuck with Cameron and led him down the path of growing his knowledge and leadership skills, while focusing heavily on sharpening his emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills

Cameron has a passion for people, specifically helping them succeed, overcome fears and achieve their goals. He also has a desire to learn and continuously improve his knowledge and skillsets as he believes that every day presents an opportunity to better oneself.  This passion for people and learning led Cameron down the path of obtaining a BS in Psychology as well as an MBA.  The reason for focusing in these two areas was that to Cameron, a leader who understands business, but who does not understand or care about people, will never truly be successful.

Cameron was officially introduced to agile in 2011 when he became the first official ScrumMaster at Nucor Building Systems.  Having prior IT project management experience, and being familiar with the existing development practices and teams, he was asked to help bring Srum and Agile to the organization.  Initially Cameron took on the role of ScrumMaster for two teams and was tasked with creating training programs and helping to lay the foundation for the organizations shift from waterfall development to agile.  His passion for agile, training, and coaching people helped lead the organizations transition to an agile environment that has grown in number from 1 ScrumMaster and Product Owner when he started the journey, to now over 5 and 10 respectively.  This passion has carried Cameron to higher leadership roles within the organization in which he was asked to oversee agile teams, coach SM’s and PO’s and work with other leadership to continue to grow and foster an agile environment built on ownership, innovation, and excellence.

As a leader and teammate his philosophy is that by communicating the why, while truly caring about and taking care of the team, the team will ultimately take care of the rest.  Just as in sports, a coach cannot/should not play the game. Therefore he/she must find ways to prepare the team by setting realistic expectations, ensure individuals within the team are in positions to succeed, empower the team, protect the team from negative influences, and above all else, the coach must be willing to let go come game time, providing support as needed by the team.