“Focus on the culture and mindsets, not process.”
– S. Delesie
With this key area of my portfolio, I bring Best Practices and Optimization techniques.
Agile
Agile is a high-level mindset for project management focusing on flexibility, collaboration, and rapid iteration.
Two popular approaches to agile are scrum and kanban.
| Approach | Description |
|---|---|
| Scrum | Deliver work through a structured framework with defined roles and time-boxed iterations (sprints) |
| Kanban | Deliver work through a continual, visual progress without fixed time intervals |
Experience
I have over 20 years of software development XP using various flavors of agile.
My agile journey began with formal training at Digital Onion in Los Angeles, a company specializing in agile methodologies. This foundation helped me understand how agile principles can be effectively adapted across various teams and industries.
At Sybo Games, I worked on Subway Surfers and led the Unity Tools Team of 7 developers. We focused on improving workflow efficiency for multiple external game teams. Under the leadership of Jesper Nielsen (LinkedIn), the flavor of agile was among my favorites. Jesper exemplified how to foster high morale and strong buy-in, both of which are crucial to successful agile implementation.
At Beamable, my work was quite independent from the rest of the team, but I chose to use Scrum as a great way to create clear communication with leadership. This structure allowed me to keep key stakeholders informed while still maintaining the flexibility to work autonomously.
With my team at Moralis, the sprint structure was the shortest I’ve ever experienced, with just 5 days. We had one hour of sprint planning and one hour for the retrospective, leaving over 35 hours to focus solely on the sprint’s goals. While such a short sprint cycle might not suit most teams, it worked well for us in this context.
At Neopets, I experienced the challenges of rapid growth, where the staff size expanded 10x in just five years. The agile practices led Nils Waschkau (LinkedIn) were critical in helping the team scale efficiently while maintaining product quality and team cohesion. My team of 12 developers and I created over 100 mini-games in a single calendar year, thanks to tight communication.
📋Learnings
Across all these experiences, I’ve seen that every team does agile differently, and that’s perfectly fine. Agile’s strength lies in its flexibility, allowing it to be tailored to meet the unique needs and dynamics of each team.
In my opinion, the sprint structure of Scrum, while more limiting, leads to tighter coordination within a team than a Kanban approach. And when independent teams use the same sprint cadence, it can help with orientation and buy-in from upper management.
What’s Next?
This area of my expertise is particularly exciting!I love to learn & to make an impact with my teams and projects.
Contact me regarding new opportunities that align with my skills and experience.