Over the years, I have had a number of adventures the world of Agile and Lean software development. During this continuous journey I have encountered successes and setbacks; I have found things that worked and things that did not work. With this blog I would like to give back to the broader community and share some of the things that I have learned along the way as an agile technology leader, and of course with a strong focus on continuous improvement to also share any new things that I might learn or discover.
So who am I and how did I get here?
I am Shawn Samuel a dyed in the wool agile/lean technologist. I wrote my first program in elementary school and have been coding ever since (though never as a full time job), and started using the internet on a 2400 kbps modem (I’m dating myself here). I also have had a lifelong passion for studying and understanding how groups of people organize to achieve goals in disparate situations.
Along the way to now, I spent time focusing on customer service to get a better understanding of how the needs of customers are not always met by software produced by engineers. I spent time working with stakeholders to define and organize projects to keep them customer focused, and achievable by software developers. Several years after the dot com bubble burst, I kept seeing similar problems cropping up again and again in the organization with the ability to deliver valuable software that customers love on a regular basis. Luckily at that time I was introduced to the book Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle. This book opened my eyes to a new world, and I dove head first into learning everything I could about Agile and Lean software development. I was lucky at the time to report to a CTO that gave me the freedom and flexibility to implement any process I wanted, as long as I could show that we were delivering results. Since then, I have led agile and lean transformations at four different companies, created cultures to sustain and nourish agile and lean software development practices, leading to the delivery of numerous successful products and projects, and happy customers.
