Contributors
Jennifer Bleen
Christine Bottagaro
Sally Elatta
Jennifer Bleen PMP, ACP, PSM is an experienced agile coach, change agent, program manager, business analyst, trainer, and industry consultant. Using her breadth of industry experience, she creates strategic solutions to develop high performing organizations. She enjoys coaching and mentoring teams and individuals to help them reach their full potential. She actively serves the central Ohio agile community as co-Founder and President of Central Ohio Agile Association, PMICOC Director of agile training and PMI Agile CoP Chapter Engagement Representative.
Christine runs integrated marketing campaigns for Rally Software, focusing on how Agile practitioners learn, what they need to know, and how to apply these learnings to their organizations. Christine has a background in product management, customer advocacy programs and strategic marketing development - as well as a passion for good reading material.
Sally is the President of Agile Transformation Inc. (8a Certification in progress)
Contact Jennifer: Jennifer.L.Bleen@huntington.com www.huntington.com
Contact Christine: cbottagaro@rallydev.com www.rallydev.com
She is an Enterprise Agile Transformation Coach who comes from a strong technical background as a software developer and architect for several years. Sally fell in love with Agile methods almost a decade ago because ‘They just brought back common sense approaches to getting work done and re-emphasized the need for Servant Leadership’. Her organization is made up of a talented team of highly qualified Agile trainers and coaches who are passionate about helping organizations succeed with their Agile Transformation. Their clients range from large fortune 50, 500 to medium size businesses and government agencies/ contractors such as HHS, DHS, DOD, Nebraska Dept of Roads, US Navy, USDA, US Army, US Air force, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Cayman Island Gov. Sally is the Agile Expert for PMI’s Learning and Education CoP, a frequent public speaker at national conferences and has published several popular videos on AgileVideos. com. She is also a co-author of the ICAgile Leadership certification track. She is also the founder of www.AgileforGovernment. com which is a site that will be dedicated to helping government agencies learn and apply Agile methods. She is a proud mother of 3 young children and enjoys traveling and exploring the world with them! Contact Sally: Sally@AgileTraining.com www.AgileforGovernment.com
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May - June 2013 · MODERN GOVERNMENT
scrum and raising scrum master and future coaches. Lizzy believes she is blessed to go to work everyday able to pursue her passions.
Elizabeth Morris ”Lizzy” Lizzy as she likes to be called, is a British native who relocated to the USA in 2005. She is a seasoned organizational change agile executive management consultant that focuses on driving measurable results for her clients, processes, employees and financials. Lizzy has over 19 years in-depth experience in delivering software development, project management and strategic consulting. This has given her a unique ability to provide clients with the right tools and techniques tailored to the needs of their organization. Lizzy career has taken from the UK across Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. Lizzy and her husband own a company called BeardedEagle, they offer services that are geared towards executives, private individuals, teams, managers, large and midsize organizations that are ready to embark on their Agile journey. Lizzy passion is Scrum and considers herself blessed to be able work everyday pursuing one of her passions. A mother of 6, 4 boys and 2 girls Lizzy understand the benefits of Scrum in action.
Lizzy considers her sweet spot to be Agile Organizational Trans-formation, the reason she is loves it so much is in her own words “there is nothing greater than starting to see all the “arhah” mo-ments happening with teams, executives and middle management. It tends to be like a domino effect that had once seemed impossi-ble. When every training class and Agile presentation and side conversation you have had comes to life and makes sense to cus-tomer. Nothing like it ..it beats ice-cream!” Lizzy considers herself a lifetime student at ecosystem of learning and development. Lizzy is always pursuing new techniques and methods to help teams evolve. Her training always have her students wanting more. Her belief is that students should leave her training with a tactile knowledge of scrum that they can immedi-ately put to use. Lizzy has her students engrossed in games, simulations and group facilitation exercises to provide an immersion experience into the philosophy and culture of agile. By no means your ordinary agile change agent . Lizzy is currently writing her first book which she hopes to be available for purchase by the end of the year. It is called Agile Transformation from Agile Heels. We will look forward to it release Contact Lizzy: team@beardedeagle.com www.beardedeagle.com
Larry Putnam, Jr. Larry has 21 years of experience using the Putnam-SLIM Methodology. He has participated in more than 80 estimation and oversight service engagements, and is responsible for product management of the SLIM-Suite of measurement tools and customer care programs. Since becoming the Managing Partner of Products and Customer Care, Larry has developed a new customer care program that has increased customer satisfaction levels by 50 percent and increased client license renewals by 46 percent. Larry is a member of and active participant in numerous organizations, including the Quality Assurance Institute, Software Program Managers Network, International Function Point Users Group, and International Society of Parametric Analysts. Larry has delivered more than 27 speeches at conferences on software estimation and measurement, and has trained – over a five-year period – more than 1,000 software professionals in the use of the SLIM-Suite. Contact Larry: info@qsm.com www.qsm.com
Lizzy has three passions training scrum, coaching executive leaders through agile adoption with
MODERN GOVERNMENT · May - June 2013
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Devon Morris
Michael Swansegar
Ronica Roth
Devon Morris is a Certified Scrum Trainer and EagleEye at BeardedEagle. He was introduced to Scrum in 2000, where he played several roles ranging from software developer to project manager. In 2005, Devon started consulting to influence the cultures and work environments of his clients. He has helped with the adoption of Scrum and Agile at numerous companies, including Allstate, Awana Clubs, Capital One, Experian, Johnson & Johnson, Pearson, Rackspace, Sears, State Farm, TransCanada and USAA.
Michael is an active Agile Trainer and Product Manager. Michael has spent over 12 years in infrastructure support and has now paved a way through Quality Assurance and Product Management. Michael has been on a quest to find “who is in charge” when it comes to defining the right product. As many Product Managers realize, the customer on the call with support is exactly the one we need to inspire. Michael believes that agile is designed to inspire loyalty with internal and external customers. Michael loves to teach and uses radical methods such as movies clips, games and stage props to memory retention by associating our normal life to the content being taught. Michael is married, has two dogs and lives in Colorado.
Ronica brings incomparable energy and passion to promoting Agile principles and practices. Her mission is to build learning organizations that honor the individual, give everyone the chance to do what they do best, and harness the power of team to amplify great work and produce great software.
Devon’s brings his broad range of experience to every training event and coaching session, so that you boost your performance when applying techniques. Devon believes in values espoused by the Agile Manifesto and applies in to his everyday life. He holds the follow certifications - Project Management Professional, Agile Certified Practitioner, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Professional and California Psychological Inventory 260 Professional. Contact Devon: team@beardedeagle.com www.beardedeagle.com
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May - June 2013 · MODERN GOVERNMENT
Contact Michael: michael@swansegar.com www.swansegarconsulting.com
As Rally’s Solutions Evangelist, Ronica works with stakeholders to set strategy for evolving Services solutions that support our customers’ needs for Agile coaching, consulting, and training. She uses her Agile Coach and Consultant experience to evangelize how Agile + Rally = company greatness. Contact Ronica: rroth@rallydev.com www.rallydev.com