Coming Home to Scrum.org

I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted the opportunity to join Scrum.org, effective early May, as Chief Operating Officer. I am grateful for the time I’ve spent at Microsoft in DevDiv, and for the chance to be a small part of shipping Visual Studio and TFS to so many developers who use those tools to make amazing things. These experiences at Microsoft have given me insights and a deep appreciation I simply would not have gained any other way.

Our community, our industry, and agility itself are at an inflection point. The agile conversation is no longer just about hugging it out with story points. The conversation is about delivering high quality software as often as possible and improving that software through feedback. It’s about making decisions based on data, experimentation, and evidence. It’s about continuous everything and delivering tangible value with software development investments. What a thrilling time to be coming home to Scrum.org!

The Scrum.org community is probably not what you think it is. It is a passionate and capable group of software professionals genuinely committed to the mission of improving the profession of software development, and I am very happy to be part of that important work. Now that agile development practices are a base expectation of creating high quality software, we live in a world different than the one that created the Agile Manifesto.

As I wrote in this article last year, 13 years of Agile successes have driven demand for continuous value delivery with high quality. New techniques and tools are emerging to enable this demand by harnessing the potential of cloud and devices. Software development teams are seeking ways to turn ideas into working software in ever faster cycles and smaller increments, bringing the new devops focus to the agility conversation.

Marc Andreessen said, "Software is eating the world." He’s right, of course, and this highlights our responsibility to deliver on our mission. The opportunity is to help create humane ecosystems of software excellence. Our mission is bigger than the Scrum framework.

I am looking forward to re-engaging the community and even blogging more! I am excited about where our profession is headed now and the future we will make together.