Agile Mentor and Management Consultant

PROFILE

I am an agile mentor and management consultant to executives, management, and software delivery personnel. I bring a balance of business, management, and technical perspectives to my global clients. Serving and working with the customer is very important to me.

I have more than nine years of consulting experience and over twelve years of software development experience. I have an intimate familiarity with agile project life-cycles, iterative processes, and traditional methodologies. I have produced highly complex business software using a wide array of practices and technologies. In addition to a solid consulting background, I have experience with a wide variety of Enterprise Software plaforms.

CLIENTS

My global clients have included: A top-tier financial-services firm based in Virginia (Financial), Solution Architects (Consulting), Saskatchewan Community Health and Epidemiology (Government and Health Care), Ford Motor Company UK (Manufacturing), TOTALGAZ -TotalFinaElf (Energy), Rational (High-Tech), Unisys (High-Tech), Sun Microsystems (High-Tech), Wasteco (Energy) TCI Cablesystems (Telecomm), and J.C. Decaux (Advertising), Adhesion Technologies (Financial), Helzberg Diamonds (Resource), iStark (Manufacturing), GreaterGood.com (E-Commerce), and Infotriever (E-Commerce).

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Agile delivery of software using practices from Scrum, eXtreme Programming, etc.
• Process and technical mentoring, leadership and coaching
• Project conception, planning, risk assessment and management
• Methodology development and process maturation using agile and traditional approaches
• Requirements analysis and customer collaboration
• Object oriented architecture, analysis, design and software development

RECENT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Israfil Consulting Services (December 2007 - September 2008)
Berteig Consulting / Comcast / TVWorks, London, ON
Agile Coach

• Agile Coach/Mentor: Coached and mentored project teams in agile software development process
• Agile Coach/Mentor: Consulted and Mentored staff involved in effort to re-organize build and test infrastructure
• Technical Architect/Mentor: Mentored Chief Architect in concepts of testable design, evolutionary design and architecture, and set-based architectural problem solving
• Technical Trainer: Delivered training in agile development practices including Test Driven Development (TDD), continuous integration, as well as incremental design and architecture and design-for-testability
• Agile Coach/Mentor: Coached Development Leads (equivalent to agile-coach/scrum-master role)
• Management Consultant: Consulted to management on team and organizational issues and development process
• Development Mentor: Proved feasibility of Dependency Injection in a highly-constrained embedded Java environment and provided initial sample implementation

Israfil Consulting Services (July 2006 - October 2007)
Roundarch, Inc./Citi Corporate Investment Bank/Citi Smith Barney, New York, NY
Software Development Mentor/Technical Architect

• Development Mentor: Coached and mentored project team in software development process
• Management Consultant: Consulted to management on team composition and development process
• Technical Architect: Delivered overall project archicture
• Development Mentor: Implemented build automation and version control for project
• Development Mentor: Assessed overall quality of tests and coached team in unit and integration test development

Israfil Consulting Services (November 2005 - June 2006)
Roundarch, Inc./DeutcheBank Alex.Brown, Baltimore, MD
Software Development Mentor/Technical Architect

• Development Mentor: Coached and mentored project team in software development process
• Management Consultant: Consulted to management on team composition and development process
• Technical Architect: Delivered overall project archicture
• Development Mentor: Oversaw code quality and mentored team members in testing and coding technique

Israfil Consulting Services (August 2005 - October 2005)
CC Pace/CapitalOne Card Services, Richmond, VA
Agile Software Development Mentor/Coach

• Development Mentor: Coached and mentored teams in agile development methodologies
• Management Consultant: Consulted to management regarding the composition of teams, team dynamics, etc.
• Management Consultant: Evaluated small and large teams in the context of an overall organizational shift towards agile software methods
• Development Mentor: Delivered training in agile engineering practice and technologies

Israfil Consulting Services (Feb 2005 - April 2005)
CCAC Application Support / Ministry of Health, Gov't of Ontario, Canada
WebPMI Integration - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Development Mentor: Consulted to Project-Management in implementing an agile development process based on Scrum and XP
• Management Consultant: Analyzed and recommended tool sets for implementation of development process
• Vendor Management: Developed relationships with vendors in pursuit of year-end tool and software expenditures
• Consulting Architect: Analyzed and developed integration approach and architecture for WebPMI application.

Israfil Consulting Services (Feb 2004 - Nov 2004)
Virginia-based top tier financial-services firm contracted through Solution Architects, Inc.
Financial Instrument Classification Engine - Multiple Simultaneous Roles
[Note: I am contractually obliged to not publish the name of this end client or its project]

• Development Mentor: Led development team through an agile software development process, using pair programming, unit testing, short iterations, and close customer relationship. Trained developers in writing unit tests, and ensured more unit tests per line of code than any other project at the client (as of last code review). Managed and specified all infrastructure elements of project, including configuration management software, unit testing, build infrastructure, development tools, etc.
• Business Analyst: Analyzed and implemented business rules for the classification of assets - assimilated key domain knowledge of financial services types, systems, and processes
• Account Management: Maintained primary business customer relationship on behalf of general contractor. Pursued various supplimentary project proposals.
• Technical Architect and Team Lead: Designed the 1.0 version of an application; a system designed to classify and type various kinds of securities and other financial instruments. Developed rules-engine technology for classification of these assets. Delivered version 1.0 of a high-performance, multi-threaded, data processing pipeline in C# and .NET.
• Human Resources Assistant: Screened and interviewed candidates.
• Project Manager: Delivered only on-time project in the history of the client (as recounted by a client vice-president), and did so on an artificially compressed timeline.

Siperian, Inc. (Nov 2003 - Jan 2004)
Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Process Maturation: Defined and implemented new requirements for automatic build systems, code generation, coding templates, unit testing standards, documentation standards and configuration management systems
• Trainer: Delivered training to contractors in architectural approach of the 3.6 product to take over production of the work
• Chief Architect: Architectural review and approval of the 3.6 version of the MRM product (Master Reference Manager)

Israfil Consulting Services - Infotriever, Inc. (May 2002 - Oct 2003)
Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Interim CIO: Defined overall technical strategy and implementation
• Interim CIO: Defined all aspects of production environment, including vendor and security management, deployment process, and monitoring systems.
• Development Lead: Primary developer and team lead for implementation of new SOAP APIs
• Development Mentor: Led development resources in improving unit testing, coding, documentation, and design practices.
• Development Mentor: Implemented an agile, short-cycle delivery process to take advantage of shifting business focus, including strong use of revision control, continuous refactoring, integration testing, and pair programming.
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Managed, designed, and led implementation team for v3.0 Infotriever Portal, converted from WebLogic to WebObjects
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Designed and lead team regarding the addition of new services to WebObjects + J2EE Web Services system integrating Apache AXIS (SOAP)
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Designed and lead team to Integrate older J2EE web-based system with newer SOAP system to provide a more seamless data integration (distributed notification system)
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Responsible for all design priorities, oversight, and tool and platform selection.
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Responsible for transition from immature J2EE implementation to a more stable configuration and architecture
• Chief Architect / Project Manager: Managed, designed, and led team to implement Infotriever Connector Server, XML/RPC (SOAP) server based on Apache AXIS, WebObjects, and Oracle
• Project Manager: Managed Development of desktop windows client to the Infotriever Connector

Roundarch, Inc. (Feb 2002 - Mar 2002)
ESUS 2.0 (Analysis and Design Phase) - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Senior Architect: Consulting architect for v1.3 of ESUS, a J2EE Framework for eCommerce.
• Development Mentor: Defined development and testing standards and processes for ESUS v2.0 project
• Business Analyst: Gathered requirements from key stakeholders regarding ESUS v2.0
• Project Manager: Organized ESUS v2.0 requirements, developed product road-map with relevant personnel
• Project Manager: Developed work-plan for ESUS v2.0 Design phase
• Senior Architect: Contributed primary design and modeling oversight for project

Roundarch, Inc. - Helzberg Diamonds (Dec 2001 - Feb 2002)
Credit-Card Processing Enhancement - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Senior Architect: Designed Credit-Card Processing Architecture for Helzberg Diamonds, based on a Plug-in adapter model targeting a J2EE platform.
• Business Analyst: Served with Roundarch consultants as an outside expert on Helzberg project to integrate CC processing system into the overall project.

Roundarch, Inc., Adhesion Technologies (Jul 2001 - Nov 2001)
EA² 2.0 (Implementation) - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Development Mentor: Coached development team.
• Development Lead: Lead development team for J2EE Web GUI and application workflow layer for EA2 2.0.
• Senior Architect: Architect for MVC GUI framework using a combination of Model-2, Struts, and WebObjects design approaches.
• Senior Architect: Co-ordinated switch of Persistence technologies to counter failing project technology.
• Senior Architect: Integrated WebObjects/EOF persistence engine with J2EE (WebLogic) container.
• Senior Architect: Chief architect for user-requirements management and application change evaluation using J2EE/WebLogic and NetBeans

Roundarch, Inc., Adhesion Technologies (Jun 2001 - Jul 2001)
EA² 2.0 (Requirements) - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Business Analyst: Performed detailed business requirements analysis for 2.0 product
• Mentor: Assisted in the selection of development approaches for 2.0 product implementation
• Development Mentor: Trained business staff in a modified Roundarch process with respect to Requirements analysis, business model specification, and functional specification.
• Senior Architect: Contributed primary design model used for overall application workflow integrating EJB-based data-layer and functional business-logic layer with an MVC GUI layer allowing proper application and developer resource partitioning. Target platform was WebLogic J2EE

Roundarch, Inc., Adhesion Technologies (Feb 2001 - May 2001)
EA² 1.0 (Due-Dilligence Review) - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Manager: Managed vendor relationship on behalf of client
• Business Analyst: Performed due-diligence investigation of 3^rd party software-in-progress
• Development Mentor: Provided strategic direction to client regarding staffing and tools selection
• Senior Architect: Documented EA² 1.0 Application Architecture, a J2EE-based system using WebLogic
• Project Manager: Performed initial scoping of EA² 2.0

Troba, Inc. (Nov 1999- Nov 2000)
Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Director of Consulting Services: Managed Global Professional Services division
• Director of Consulting Services: Responsible for deployment and custom implementation of Troba technologies
• Development Mentor: Implemented an agile client delivery process, including automated testing, pair programming, and rapid prototyping.
• Senior Architect: Provided technical oversight to product team in architectural areas related to Object-Oriented Architecture, O/R Mapping systems, Software Development Process
• Senior Architect: Architect for core administrative facilities using J2EE technologies
• Project Manager: Supervised full lifecycle of “TrobaAnalyzer 1.0”
• Director of Consulting Services: Supervised Professional Services personnel in client implementation of Troba solutions

Israfil Consulting Services - GreaterGood.com (Jun 1999 - Oct 1999)
GreaterGood "Next Generation" Core Infrastructure - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Senior Architect: Working with OmniGroup and Ubermind consulting Architects, developed core architecture for next generation of GreaterGood web-application
• Senior Developer: Delievered content-management software from scratch in 3 months through full lifecycle using WebObjects application server and related technologies. The content-management system implemented an agile, rapid prototyping/testing metaphor to enable marketing staff to "whiteboard" campaigns.
• Development Mentor: Implemented an agile software process including unit tests, continuous integration, shifting paired-programming, and rapid prototyping.

OLDER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Oracle Consulting Services - J.C.Decaux (Feb 1999 - Jul 1999)
Gestion de Clients - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Project Manager: Managed early lifecycle elements (after business analysis, before testing cycle) of Gestion de Clients (Client Management) software for J.C. Decaux (Paris-based advertising firm).
• Project Architect: Analyzed and developed architecture for Gestion de Clients. Gestion de Clients managed resource allocation, placement, billing, and scheduling for billboard advertising Europe-wide. The project was implemented using Oracle Application Server using J2EE 1.0 and Oracle 8.
• Management Consultant: Provided strategic direction and recommendations for tools and technologies selection.
• Management Consultant: Primary liason to Business Analysis Team.
• Project Manager: Primary responsible party for team structure, hiring and ramp-up.
• Note: All project duties performed in French and English.

Oracle Consulting Services - TOTALGAZ (Oct 1998 - Jan 1999)
TOTAL TEP [Totalgaz Exploration de Petroleum] Exploration System - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Technical Architect: Architected and Prototyped Large-Scale distributed Oilfield Exploration information system, including a proprietary satellite-friendly object-distribution mechanism in Java and C++
• Management Consultant: Delivered Tools and Technologies assessment and recommendations for the production environment of above system.
• Technical Architect: Delivered Implementation Strategy, core architecture and requirements analysis for final Exploration system.

Oracle Consulting Services - Unisys, Rational, and PTech (Jul 1998 - Sep 1998)
Unisys Universal Repository Integration - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Working with Unisys, Rational, and PTech staff, was architect of a common information exchange architecture based on XML Meta Object Framework for passing object-oriented elements between UREP and external engineering tools
• Prototyped Rational integration with UREP
• Provided technical assessments to negotiations with Rational regarding UREP Integration
• Provided initial level-of-effort assessments for PTech Framework integration

Sun Microsystems Consulting - Various Customers (Mar 1997 - Jul 1998)
Various Contracts - Multiple Simultaneous Roles

• Consulted with Sun customers with respect to software development process, architectural appropriateness of software, software architecture. Customers included Big 5 automotive industry player as well as Global 500 European Oil & Gas
• Participated in knowledge transfer and training of Sun Customers
• Analyzed and critiqued third-party Object-to-RDBMS mapping systems for comparison with JavaBlend and other Java solutions developed at Sun Microsystems
• Architect of Object-to-RDBMS Mapping System in Java
• Consulted with Sun customers with respect to software defects, resolution of defects, implementation of quality assurance process, etc
• Responsible for the end-of-life maintenance of a large set of technologies and applications resulting from various acquisitions. Primary technologies involved were NeXTSTEP 3.3, OPENSTEP for Mach 4.1 and EOF, C, and Objective-C

Q-Soft, Inc. (Oct 1995 - Feb 1997)
Director of Software Development
Software Engineer / Chief Architect

• Directed and Managed the day to day aspects of Q-Soft's software engineering enterprises

• Provided direction and leadership in the design, and architecture of Q-Soft's software products
• Prototyped Petroleum Industry Waste Management information system in Objective-C/OpenStep
• Produced prototype and Version 1 of auto-search.com, now billed as www.globemegawheels.com, an automotive sales broker web application in Visual Basic
• Implemented an agile process with heavy customer involvement in short, rapid development cycles.
• Designed and implemented re-write of auto-search.com using WebObjects and Objective-C technologies

Bowest Computer Systems, Ltd. (Aug 1994 - Sep 1995)
Director of Internet Services

• Initiated, Directed and Managed the day to day aspects of Internet Service Provision services
• Acquired corporate customers
• Designed and implemented network topology and security architecture
• Designed and implemented network administration tools in Objective-C and NeXTSTEP

Department of Community Health and Epidemiology - Health Status Research Unit (Aug 1992 - March 1993)
Software Engineer,
Database and Network Administrator

• Designed, implemented and maintained database architecture for epidemiological tracking system
• Provided additional software engineering and networking support to Department of Community Health and Epidemiology
• Assisted staff and students to execute complex queries and statistical modeling on such query results

Department of Computing Services (October 1991 - March 1992)
Public-Relations Consultant

• Provided tier-1 support to staff, students, and faculty regarding all manner of computer needs

Department of Animal Sciences (July 1991 - August 1991)
Network End-User Trainer

• Delivered training in the use network computer software to end-users

• Developed training materials for delivery to end-users
• Delivered network and software support services to end-users

EDUCATION

University of Saskatchewan
Computer Science

SUPPLIMENTARY TRAINING

Bea Portal 8.1
Proficiency in BEA Weblogic Portal/Workshop 8.1

Certified Scrum Master
Trained by Ken Schwaber in delivery of Scrum projects

Broadvision University
Proficiency in Broadvision Server Side Scripting

Claremont Consulting Group - Arnold Ruskin PMP
Project Management - Principles and Practice

NeXT Software Inc.
Enterprise Object Framework (Object-Relational Persistence Engine)

VOLUNTEER WORK

United Nations Association of Saskatoon: Participant at model united nations representing Canada, various fundraising activities

Pride Canada: Anti-addiction seminars and school presentations

Faith Community : community development worker, youth teacher, chief executive of local community authority, member of board of directors of local community authority, national level committee secretary, community development coach

STRATEGIC PROFICIENCIES

Methodologies

• Agile Methodologies (eXtreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Lean Analysis, mixed methods)
• Rational Unified Process
• Roundarch Methodology with Object-Oriented Extensions
• Oracle’s Object-Oriented Standard Development Method
• Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

Areas of Strategic Consulting

• Software Development Process Maturation
• Technology Strategy
• Technology and Tools Selection
• Technology Staffing

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Member: Independent Computer Consultants’ Association
Member: Project Management Institute
Member: Agile Masters
Member: Agile Alliance
Member: Scrum Alliance

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY PROFICIENCIES

Applications

• Apache Server
• Apache Tomcat/J2EE
• WebObjects (Proprietary + J2EE integration)
• WebLogic/J2EE
• BroadVision One-To-One (Proprietary + J2EE integration)

Development Tools

• Eclipse
• Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003
• Apple Project Builder/Interface Builder
• CVS/Subversion/Perforce
• Rational Rose, Ptech Frameworks, Argo UML, etc.
• Gcc and GNU bintools
• Ant, Nant, Junit, NUnit

Languages

• Java
• C#
• Objective-C
• SQL
• XML
• C / C++
• JavaScript
• UML

Databases

• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• PostgreSQL

Operating Systems Familiarity

• Microsoft Windows (NT/2000/XP/2003)
• NeXTSTEP/OpenStep/Darwin/MacOSX
• Unix (Solaris, HPUX, IRIX, OpenBSD, etc.)

LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

English: (Fluent written, Fluent spoken - Fluent, Business and Technical)
French: (Strong written, Strong spoken - Conversational, Business and Technical)
Esperanto: (Beginner written, Beginner spoken - Beginniner, Business and Technical)