Loren Kerr

Loren M. Kerr I graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Game Design and Development from Collins College in Tempe, Arizona in 2008. Since graduating college, I've acquired nearly a decade in development experience across several stacks, but with a focus in .NET and NodeJS. Immediately after college, I moved back home to New Orleans where I worked for the Federal Judiciary for over 3 years. Here, I served as an application developer for law clerks, federal judges, and law librarians. I began to grow weary of how much time was wasted pointing fingers, not getting things done because they "could always just get done tomorrow". The lack of motivation from fellow employees had me seek a better life in the private sector. I immediately began working for a (non-agile) consultancy at Digicomm Systems, Inc. where I bettered my trade as a Full Stack Developer. I learned much from this job and I have experienced, first hand, why waterfall methodologies just aren't ideal. I had heard buzz words about agile methodologies and decided to investigate further. When I found a startup that specializes in helping other startups develop their projects, using Scrum, I quickly jumped ship at the opportunity to continue to grow and learn. Working at WebDevrs, LLC was by far my favorite experience as a developer, helping clients get results in just 2-week sprints. They got excited because they could see work being done so fast, which in return motivated us even more. It was here that I learned to value transparency between product owners and developers. Unfortunately, WebDevrs eventually liquidated and I found myself out of work. I quickly moved into a role as a lead developer at Susco Touch Studios in Metairie, La. This was a very similar experience as WebDevrs, but with worse results. There was direct involvement in sprint planning from the CEO, who liked to continually scope creep as iterations began. It was his way of overpromising to the client and trying to sell a million things at once. This resulted in developers putting in overtime, without bonus or pay increase. There would eventually be a mass-exodus and everyone that I worked with then, has sense moved on. After Susco, I moved to a job in Mandeville, La for a company named Netchex where we developed HR and Payroll software. Here, I served as a Developer and interim ScrumMaster. I believe that I learned the most here about Scrum and I really appreciated the transparency all the way from the CEO down to the Team Members. While not always having the best Product Owner involvement, we still managed to use Scrum to get things done pretty timely and always made our deadlines. Our process was so refined, here, that we even had a room where each team would perform their Scrum Ceremonies, in person, at the same time each day. The CEO was so excited about our process that, on numerous occasions, he would bring his clients around and show us off and explain the process to them. While this could be considered an impediment to most, and it absolutely was at first, we got used to it and took it as a compliment. This helped us continue to adapt and change accordingly. It is here that I quickly became a Scrum Evangelist. I began reading several books by some of the top names in Scrum, including books by Jeff Sutherland and more. While I enjoyed this job and learned a lot, I felt that it was lacking in employee progression. They also refused to pay for any Scrum certifications that I thought were vital to my future in Scrum. There wasn't much room to move. I was offered a job in Denver, CO for a company called Perficient, Inc for a Business Unit formerly run by Boltech. It is here that I have worked for almost a year and a half as a Team Lead, and formerly ScrumMater (until the client would spring for paying for one full-time). Since working for Perficient, I have obtained all 3 role Certifications (CSD, CSPO, CSM), and have worked very closely with Scrum Trainer and fellow evangelist Vernon Stinebaker on furthering my Scrum career. I very much see the value in Scrum outside of Software Development and I am excited to be a part of this methodology. I believe Scrum can be used to not only change software development but the world at large.