Melissa Thornton

Melissa Thornton's early career efforts were a classic example of the precept ‘If you don’t know where you’re going you’ll probably end up somewhere else’. This statement has been attributed to many individuals over the years including Yogi Berra and L. J. Peters.  In a similarly paraphrased conversation between the Cheshire Cat and Alice in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ the cat tells Alice that if she ‘only’ wants to get ‘somewhere’ then she ‘only’ has to walk long enough down any road.  Melissa’s ‘wander’ thru sales, retail, food service, forestry, bookkeeping and administrative work before accidently obtaining a job as a software trainer exemplifies that concept.   ‘Bingo’ just like that Melissa’s long walk got her to SOMEWHERE.  A direction was identified, interests and talents discovered.  A path was made.

Melissa spent the next 13 years at an internationally known insurance brokerage firm progressing from Trainer to Business Analyst and then into a Supervisor position.  She made several forays into the technical side thru classes such as SQL, DB2, FoxPro and a stint as network administrator before realizing her interests and analytical and organizational skills were better suited to troubleshooting, analysis and management of processes.   

Baker extraordinaire Melissa, during a 2 year leave of absence from the corporate world to start her own gourmet dessert business, learned several very important lessons.  Lessons two and three below would prove invaluable in her efforts to apply creativity to the reality of ‘agile’ in her role as a Product Owner and then as a ScrumMaster.

1.  You will always need more capital than anticipated.
2.  Although accomplished at multi-tasking it was not possible to fill ‘ALL’ roles in the bakery.
3.  There is more than one way to ‘bake a cake’. 

Returning to IT as a Senior Business Analyst and Team Lead at Technicolor, Inc. Melissa performed the role of Project Manager, Team Lead, Business Analyst and QA for projects in an automated distribution and returns warehouse for 12+ years. Offshoring the IT function led to a reduction in staff.

Three months after accepting a position as a Senior Business Analyst at ServiceMaster, Inc. in the Identity and Access Management arena, Melissa and her teammates voted to become an agile team using Scrum as the methodology.  Without any guidance or mentors and operating in the middle of a traditional PMO the first agile team was formed.  Melissa became the Product Owner for the team and completed her certification.

ServiceMaster went on to become an agile shop and over the next 3 ½ years Melissa moved into the position of ScrumMaster.  She is a certified Scrum Master and has led both Kanban and Scrum teams and is also familiar with the SAFE methodology.  Her contributions to the Scrum maturity level of the 44+ Scrum and Kanban teams include creating processes as well as training team members and other Scrum Masters.