Welcome to my new web site and blog I created to support my Scrum Training and Agile Consulting business, I am happy that you took some time to visit. After working for some great companies over my long career, including Liberty Mutual, Fidelity Investments, DEC, and Unum, I finally decided it was time fly solo and create my own company, Scrum On, where I am finally my own boss for the first time in my life. Leaving the security of a steady paycheck, retirement plan, and health care for my family can be foreboding at times, but I'm far from the shallow now.
My vision for Scrum On is simple: To help companies, teams and individuals move beyond the mechanics to get the most out of their Agile adoptions and transformations, through premium, cutting-edge Professional Scrum Training and Agile coaching.
To meet this vision I will offer a premium experience through Scrum.org Professional Scrum courses, as well as Agile coaching and consulting in the broader New England area. Having spent my youth in a small Rhode Island town, located half way between Providence and Worcester, my plan is already underway to travel back several times a year to offer those fine communities access to premium, cutting-edge Scrum Training and Certification, from Scrum.org, the creators and maintainers of Scrum. And having spent majority of my professional career living and working in the greater Boston, New Hampshire and Portland Maine area, I am starting to book trainings in those areas.
Ken Schwaber has been quoted as saying "Scrum takes two days to learn, and a lifetime to master". So true. Having worked with hundred of Scrum Teams, Scrum Masters, Product Owners and Development Teams over the past 12 years, I feel that most Scrum Teams never move beyond mechanical Scrum. Some even lean towards Zombie Scrum. Very few ever become high performing Scrum Teams. Scrum Masters act as project managers instead of servant leaders, coaches, facilitators and mentors. Product Owners are simply order takers and requirement scribes. What's missing you may be thinking? "We're doing Scrum, we have stand ups, demos and other Scrum ceremonies, what's wrong with that?", you may ask. The answer: Professional Scrum.
Professional Scrum is about moving beyond those mechanics. Professional Scrum is about Development Teams self organizing, Scrum Masters acting as change agents in the organization, Product Owners acting as entrepreneurs, organizations adopting a culture of continuous improvement, teams changing behaviors through Scrum values, developers improving quality and delivery via modern engineering practices, and everyone having a true understanding of empiricism, to name just a few.
Professional Scrum Teams rally around a Scrum Goal with laser focus in their Daily Scrum, execute every Sprint as if it is their last Sprint, and deliver a potentially shipable, "Done" product Increment by the end of the Sprint. Many release an Increment more than once a Sprint, because validated learning is that important. Professional Scrum Teams love to experiment, and continuously learn, knowing that the future cannot be predicted. Knowledge is gained from the past.
Scrum On is located on the seacoast of New Hampshire, just 40 miles north of Boston. Scrum was created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland over 24 years ago in Boston, and Scrum.org is still a vibrant company located in the same building in Burlington, MA, where the first Scrum team ever worked. I hope we can work together on something special.
Scrum On!
Chris
I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in I'll never meet the ground Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us We're far from the shallow now
In the shallow, shallow In the shallow, shallow In the shallow, shallow We're far from the shallow now
- Lyrics by Lady Gaga