CEO at Agrando (pvt) Ltd
Colombo, Western province 0002
Sri Lanka
www.agrando.no
October 2012-Present

As part of my companies "Extended Office" service, we can start and operate new IT-companies in Sri Lanka for foreign investors. The traditional standard outsourcing model is not right for everyone and our “Extended Office” can offer other method there we start a company on behalf of our customer. Agrando is such an example where we have a small development team where all are CSM.

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CEO at Embla Software Innovation (pvt) Ltd.
Colombo, Western province 002
Sri Lanka
www.embla.asia
December 2008-Present

I moved to Sri Lanka and started my second software company. I have invested a lot in technology, quality and processors together with project management. It took us only one year to become a Microsoft Gold partner. I don’t know about anyone in the country that has achieved the partnership this fast. With a background in the oil and gas industry it was a natural path to seek the ISO9001:2008 certification to be sure that our processors are in the place and that we are able to deliver the same high “quality” software day after day. In order to deliver projects and services to the Norwegian and Danish oil and gas industry we had to be Achilles certified. We got our certification in 2011 as the only company in Sri Lanka and as the only IT-company in the Asian hemisphere. This was a BIG achievement for our company. The Achilles certification is built upon the ISO9001 certification. When I came to Sri Lanka in 2008, I think I was the only CSM – certified scrum master in the country. (Please correct me if I’m wrong). I trained all my staff in Scrum and we have been running Scrum in my company from day 1. I realized fairly soon that my coaching was not enough so contacted GoodAgile in Singapore to see if it was possible to get a trainer to come to Sri Lanka for a session. I also contacted other IT-companies in Colombo in the attempt to get some positive wibes going for Scrum. After a bit back and forth, Mr Deemer came to Colombo and ran a course. I sent all my programmers for the course and at one time we had 100% CSM coverage in our company. Since then I have lost a few colleagues to other companies as they became a lot more “worth” as a CSM in the country where nobody put money into this kind of training for their employees. I’m happy that my initiative has brought Scrum into Sri Lanka in a big way and that very many IT-companies looks upon Scrum as a very positive tool in their project management. I’m happy to see that the IT-industry in the country is moving forward. I had planned to attend the course with Mr. Deemer but due to a customer meeting in Norway, I had to cancel my seat. We are now on the move to certify all the new employers that have started since the last course. We are running Scrum in our company every and all new colleagues get a good understanding of the method, but it’s always positive to put people on courses to show that you appreciate them and to give them some aha-experiences that I could not give them. In January 2013 we again sent everybody on a new scrum course with Ilan and Colin in Colombo. We are now short of one person that is not a CSM in our company, but trust that we can find time for him on the course in February. I will also join this course as a third time CSM  One question to the ScrumAlliane at the very end – have any of the top management in the IT-industry in Sri Lanka taken the CSM or CSP themselves, or are they just sending their employees to take the courses? Is there a dedication from the top management to embrace Scrum? I have learned from the last few years that it’s possible to run both the rigid ISO9001 system and the agile Scrum methods side by side in the same company without any shortfalls and shortcuts.

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CEO at Embla Norsk Familiehistorie AS
Stavanger, Rogaland 4085
Norway
www,embla.no
June 1996-Present

I started my own software company in 1996 at the same time as I was working at GeoQuest. This was approved by the management at GeoQuest. We are producing programs for area within family trees, tracing your ancestors, genealogy. Our main product "Embla Familie og Slekt" is the most sold genealogy program in Norway, but the program was an idea of the American company Family Technologies already in 1992 as the first Microsoft Windows came out. Our program is the very first genealogy program in the world to use digital pictures. As my own company grows, I terminated my job in the oil and gas sector and moved over to the IT-industry. As all software companies at that time, we also had big problems to be able to deliver on time. Our offices were in the Science Park of Stavanger, Norway and one professor from the University of Copenhagen had a presentation about his findings in the use of iterative development. This was back in 2000. I invited the professor to come back to Norway and spend two days with my team to teach them these iterative methods. At that time, there were no tools of fixed methods as most of it was on the processors “drawing board” – or should I say – in his head as an idea that had not yet settled. This was when I first discover the magic of taking one large project and cut it into smaller time-slices with releases at each time-slice. It turned out to be a too big a challenge for my programmers that was well into waterfall and the human mindset was the main problem in moving these new thoughts forward. In 2008, again at the Science Park, another person from Oslo had a presentation about Scrum and with the information that he would be leading a Scrum-course in Stavanger – I assume it was the very first one on the west coast of Norway. I attended this course with Geir Amsjø from Norway and Jens Ostergaard from Denmark. This is where I became a Scrum Master and discovered true software management. My company in Norway is still operative and our main product “Embla Familie og Slekt” is at its version 9 at the moment.

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SYS. Admin at GeoQuest AS
Stavanger, Rogaland 4000
Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoQuest_Systems
February 1996-June 1999

Joied GeoQuest as a Sys. Admin (what I started my career as).GeqQuest was a company in the Schumberger oilfield services family that developed software for the seismic industry. I worked in the testing department with about 20 testes. This is where I was introduced to software development and quality assurance.

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EDB operatør >> NAV processing >> Group Leader >> Navigatør at Geco AS
Stavanger, Rogaland 4000
Norway
http://www.slb.com/services/westerngeco.aspx
May 1985-January 1996

Started in Geco AS, Norway just after ended education as a Sys.Admin in the mapping department. Geco is a seismic company - part of the large Schlumberer operation, operating in the oil and gas sector all around the world. After two years I moved to the navigation department post processing of navigational data in the same company. After another two years I moved to London, England in the same company and the same department, but as a group leader for a team of 8 people - all of them senior to me. The projects in the London office were at that time always delayed. That was the rule rather than the exceptions. A normal project lasted for a few months where each team member had their special task (filtering of compasses, lasers, air guns etc). All of these tasks have to be merged - on the same day in order to continue the processing. This never happened and people might walk up and down the hallway waiting for their colleagues to finish so they could merge the work and continue on the process. I introduced a “game” of where we made graph on millimeter paper for each individual that everyone could see – the team, the management etc. It looked very much like an opposite burndown chart used in Scrum. At the end of each day, the person would use the green color if they were ahead of schedule and a red color if they were behind. People could find themselves spending 10 minutes less of their 1 hour lunch brake or maybe spent 10 minutes more at the end of every day to be sure that they could put a green color on the map. It became a habit for the top management to come to our office every day to look at all the maps and the colors and if one person was lagging behind with more and more red on his or her graph, the top management would ask what he could do to help gain the lost work. The end result was astonishing – we here the only team that was on time with every project – always. My little simple “game” was used in all the teams and post processing department in London was able to produce a lot more than any other processing center in the world. I left London and the department after 2,5 years and moved back to the Norwegian office. At the same time, the London office moved their offices to another location and they got new management. After that, they were never able to get back into the same production as the new management was pushing for the “traditional fashion” tools used in the industry. I leaned to “make it fun”, “keep it simple” and “inspect every day”. I was in the middle of my twenties at that time. In Norway I became a Team Lead for a group of where I was again leading more senior people than me that in the past had been my management. Again after a few years I moved “offshore” working the next 3.5 years onboard different vessels shooting seismic around the world. At the time I was at the point where I felt that the management was not eager to look for ways to improve our working process. It was the same day after day. I then left the company after 14 years but joined as a Sys. Admin (what I started my career as) in GeqQuest – a company in the Schumberger family that developed software for the seismic industry. I worked in the testing department with about 20 testes. Some of my guiding stars during these years have been consistent quality and the use of processors as an ISO9001 company. The important of HMS – health and safety in the work environment and how to look after your colleagues in a dangerous and hazardous work environment.

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