About

About Me

Within the bounds of digital products, I've taken the notion of "generalising specialist" quite literally, having worked across software development, business analysis, project management, testing, architecture, IT services and infrastructure.

I started working on the web in 1995. It was an experiment with Hewlett Packard to establish the "viability of the web as a profitable revenue channel".

It was essentially a start-up before start-ups were a thing, and it came with all the complications that come with start-ups today - and none of the tools to help. We learned a lot...

Initially we worked for luxury travel brands, cobbling together some daisy-chained external SCSI drives to some Macs, a Filemaker Pro Database, and an unfeasibly large chunk of AppleScript. This generated large-scale static sites, that were piped up an ISDN line to a server sat under a desk at HP in Bristol.

As the web started to bloom, and websites started to become cleverer, we moved with the times. Applescript was upgraded to Java Servlets, and we set about building booking engines, loyalty programmes and itinerary planners.

This led to several years working as a combination Business Analyst and Project Manager. Simple, clear specs and enthusiastic shiny Gantt Charts were my tools.

My first opportunity to work within an agile framework came with an organisation-level transition from traditional waterfall development, with a PMO coordinating siloed departments, matrix-managed across multiple projects, to a programme of dedicated cross-functional feature teams working within Scrum. As a freshly minted Scrum Master, I found a whole new way of thinking about work.

These days, my focus is to build a safe, enjoyable environment for consensus, collaboration, reflection and learning, whilst helping teams remain focused on the goals and strategic objectives of the organisation.

Relevant Qualifications

  • ICAgile (ref)
  • Certified Agile Coach
  • Certified Agile Team Facilitator
  • scrum.org (Profile Page)
  • Professional Scrum Master 1
  • Professional Product Owner 1
  • Certified LeSS Practitioner
  • Training from the Back of the Room

Interests

  • Systems Thinking
  • Complexity Theory
  • Mental Models
  • Psychology

Please do take a look at my full CV for more information.

About this site

History really does repeat itself - this is, like the sites I started with back in 1995, a static site. I've built it with Gatsby and Contentful, based on the excellent gatsby-starter-gcn by Ryan Weimer. It is hosted on Netlify from source in GitLab. It's a fine example of iterative, incremental development - with a product backlog in Trello.