DLC, Northampton
Scrum Training and Agile Coach Services
Webgate were asked to provide a two-day Scrum course for DLC, a company that were newly adopting Scrum. Derek delivered our hugely popular, interactive, non-technical course. This course has students practice Scrum using Lego as a tool for building a product. Student comments on the feedback forms included:
– Helen C
– Paul M
– Andy M
Overall, attendees rated the course a 9.5 out of a possible 10. In fact, the success of the training led to Derek being asked to provide on-site Agile Coach services.
For a period of seven weeks, Derek helped DLC to apply Scrum as effectively as possible. He provided additional training in areas such as estimation, product backlog management, self-organization, reporting and Agile techniques, to name a few.
He also helped to spread the word about Scrum across the entire organisation running Scrum primer training courses and by having regular contact with the CFO and senior managers at dlc. This level of senior executive engagement is vital in making Scrum adoptions successful. The outcome is best expressed by Brennan, a Technical Architect employed at DLC:
Dunelm Mill, Leicester
Provided Scrum Training and Agile Coach Services
Derek was contracted by Tryzens, a UK based software services company, to help them understand and adopt Scrum. This was a pre-cursor to helping Tryzens to implement an eCommerce system for Dunelm Mill, a UK based soft furnishings retailer.
Derek presented a two-hour ‘Introduction to Scrum’ course at Tryzens’ offices in London. The presentation was well attended by all levels of staff from developers to directors. Feedback from attendees included:
-Laura T
This then led to a Scrum course for some of the developers that would be working with Dunelm Mill. Feedback included:
-Sean D
There then followed a period of work as an Agile Coach at Dunelm Mill where Derek would regularly work with senior managers, including attendance at board meetings with the CEO, CFO and other senior managers, to address any Scrum related queries.
A fundamental part of the early work was to help the eCommerce team create a Product Vision. This was then used to help both the Dunelm management team and the Scrum Teams in deciding what functionality was needed in the product. Regular meetings were held at senior director level to assist in the adoption of Scrum across the company.
Derek also provided more Scrum training across the company as well as Agile Coaching and Scrum Master services across the Scrum teams. Comments from senior managers at both Dunelm Mill and Tryzens include:
– Jon Davis, Head of Multi-Channel Transformation
– Dan Fountain, Project Delivery Director
-Ken Konsein, Professional Services Director
asos.com, London
Provide Agile Coach and Scrum Master Services
asos.com are the UK’s largest independent online eCommerce fashion retailer. During 2012 they started a significant transformation towards adopting Scrum and Agile software practices. Derek was originally engaged as a technical agile coach to help the software teams adopt agile techniques. However, at that time, asos.com had greater need of a Scrum Master and so Derek began work as a Scrum Master for a newly formed Scrum team and as an Agile Coach for the organization as a whole.
This work presented considerable challenges, especially as Derek was also now responsible for coaching the permanent Scrum Masters employed by asos.com. The effects of this work are best expressed by the people he worked with:
His insight and experience has added real value to me as a Scrum Master and I look forward to continuing to benefit from his expertise in the future.
– Adrian Pottier
– Ali Asl
– Duncan Smith
As well as coaching other Scrum Masters, Derek worked with his own newly formed Scrum team. Again, the results of this work are best expressed by a member of the team:
On a personal level Derek is a pleasure to work with
– Nick Champion
As well as achieving great results with Scrum Masters and Scrum Teams, Derek also earned praise from his peers for his work:
– Dan Brown, Accredited Kanban Coach with LKU
– Mark Summers, Certified Scrum Trainer and Certified Scrum Coach