Well, given that this is my first posting for this blog let me take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Keith Taylor, I’ve been walking the halls of software development companies for over 19 years. Currently I’m walking (well running in case my boss reads this) the halls of Blackboard as a Senior Architect for the Transact division located in Phoenix, AZ with a current focus on implementing Scrum. Prior to this, I was the Director of Product Development at Lumension, S.A. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lumension, Inc.) in the small, great country of Luxembourg. Reaching even further back in time, I fulfilled multiple roles at Microsoft located in the Redmond, WA headquarters.
During my entire hall walking history, I’ve seen more project management processes come and go then I can count on both hands. They all start off with the same stated goal, produce quality software that meets the intended requirements in as short a time as possible. The vast majority of these processes go about pursuing that goal with varying levels of detailed analysis and introspection into every aspect of the overall development process (one even made me record how much time I spent in the bathroom!) - mostly with an underlying goal of controlling change to reduce impact to the stated plan of record. When I was first introduced to Scrum I became intrigued because while the goal was the same - it actually embraced change vs. trying to control it. Since then, I’ve experienced Scrum from many perspectives starting with ScrumMaster training provided by Jeff Sutherland, to rolling scrum out internationally, to training an entire division on the principals of Scrum, Agile, and Lean techniques.
The last five years of my hall walking I’ve been almost completely and solely focused on helping teams adopt Agile and Lean techniques within the framework of Scrum. I’ve worked with Scrum teams located in six geographies spread across three countries. I’ve transitioned existing organizations to Scrum as well as built new teams from scratch. I’ve lead and participated in Scrum tuning groups that were tasked with regular review of team’s adoption and utilization of Scrum in order to adapt the overall Scrum process on a global scale. I’ve been hands on with Scrum from almost every perspective; a team member, a ScrumMaster, and as senior management leading the charge.
My goal for this blog is to share my Scrum experiences and in so doing hopefully grow my own understanding of Scrum, Agile, and Lean techniques through your comments and the following discussions sure to take place.
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