Software Test Engineer at Microsoft
Redmond, Washington
United States
www.microsoft.com
February 1998-September 2000

I started my career as a software tester working on Windows 2000. Working on a product with 3000 other people, and daily builds taught me the importance of good test automation early in my career

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Software Developer at eCentric Switch
Cape Town,
South Africa
www.ecentricswitch.co.za
November 2000-May 2002

I worked as a developer on financial systems like debit and credit cards switching, and bank debit order systems.

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Programme Manager (Onsite Customer) at Workshare
Cape Town,
South Africa
www.workshare.com
June 2002-November 2004

My first exposure to agile. I worked as the on site customer for an XP team, developing software for the legal industry. I learned to write user stories, acceptance tests, and to make decisions about when to release.

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Program Manager at Safmarine Computer Services
Cape Town,
South Africa

December 2004-November 2006

I worked as a Program Manager overseeing all software projects for Maersk Line. In this job I learned the importance of hiring good teams, delegating responsibility to them, and most importantly having fun at work!

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Project Delivery Executive at IBM
Cape Town,
South Africa
www.ibm.com
December 2006-May 2007

IBM acquired the SCS business and all staff. I went through my first big corporate buy out. I lasted 5 months. I learned how managing by spreadsheets of costs and utilization do not work, and fundamentally clash with my personal values. I am happier for having experienced this, and knowing how lucky I am not to work in an environment like this anymore.

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Implementation Manager at JP Morgan
Cape Town,
South Africa

June 2007-November 2007

Apparently when you leave a job in a hurry, you make bad choices :) This was my bad choice. I wanted to move away from the software industry into the financial industry thinking things could only get better. I was wrong. They were in fact far worst. I stayed for 7 months only so that I could find the right job the next time.

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Project Manager/Project Office Manager/Scrum Coach at Intec
Cape Town,
South Africa
http://www.intecbilling.com/
December 2007-June 2010

I started at Intec as a Project Manager and quickly moved into the position of Project Office Manager, where I was responsible for rolling out Scrum to the R&D team of 100 people. What I enjoyed most at Intec were the people and the willingness to try new things. In hindsight I did not have the experience at the time to be the main Scrum expert in the company. The experience was invaluable. I learned about all the things not to do when rolling out Scrum. In the end their Scrum implementation was a failure (in my view), but an important learning experience for me.

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Software Development Manager at Fundamo
Cape Town,
South Africa
www.fundamo.com
July 2010-December 2011

At Fundamo I worked with teams who had been doing Scrum for 2 years already, but I reminded them of some of the practices they had forgotten. I loved the energy and enthusiasm of the team members and their willingness to try anything. I got to see Scrum working well, and figure out my strengths lay in helping others be successful by coaching and mentoring them to push themselves towards excellence.

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Agile Mentor and Trainer at Growing Agile
Cape Town,
South Africa
www.growingagile.co.za
January 2012-Present

Growing Agile is a partnership between myself and Sam Laing. We focus on what we enjoy most, helping teams to be successful with agile. We do mentoring, coaching, training and facilitation.

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