My name is Mark Gaudlip and I have been in the software industry since 1994 after having acquired a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh.  I am both a Certificed Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional.  I've had the Certified Scrum Master course with Ken Schwaber, in addition to the Advanced Scrum Master course with several of the key Agile players in the industry.

I've gained valuable experiences in team and company behaviors from having worked for two companies that had morphed from a small shop to being integrated within a multi-national corporation.  Working through those changes both times has provided an insight into the behaviors and characteristics of a company, its teams, and teammembers as they transition from an entrepeneurial shop to a more governed large corporation.

My latest position provided me a great opportunity to begin working with Scrum, Agile and Lean. In 2004, I had received my Scrum Master Certification and was, at the time, one of the first couple hundred people in the world with the certification. Everything I was taught and had spent time reading regarding Agile and Lean, seemed like "common sense".

Over the 7 years since that certification, our company has endured many changes, integrations, and realignments with different comanies.  This introduced many challenges to our successful implementation of Agile and Lean.

We've learned and adapted continuously through our Retrospectives meetings, a few Pre-mortem meetings, and through some team 'excercises'.

Additionally, I spent time doing presentations and informal talks on our Agile and Lean process for our internal groups as well as a few groups of product owners that we interfaced with as customer proxies. Having the honor of a few instances to speak one on one and gather feedback and guidance with Tom Poppendieck proved to be a wonderful source of growth. Of course, to return the favor, we invited him to help decorate our office for a Halloween party...

Recently, our group has gone through massive changes including losing many of our teammembers and taking on the challenge of offshore co-development.  This came with an increase of top/down process mandates and changes that were in some cases contrary to our processes.  A large effort was now needed to try to implement Agile and Lean principles in an environment that was more hostile to its implementation, and to spend a lot of time coaching and guiding our new teammembers, who had all come from heavily governed waterfall environments, to understand how we function.

We are making progress but have a long way to go to regain our old velocity and quality.  However, going through these times again is bringing us the chance to 'redo' some processes or tools that we would not have realized without this change.

Having a long and varied experience in Agile and Scrum is key to evolving your processes.  And needs change with the experience of your team.  Persistance and honesty will make a huge impact in helping make your processes close to you work the most efficiently over time!

The one 'joke' I have is referring to myself as a Scrum Goat - a mix of Scrum Master and Scapegoat.  It is a cathartic chuckle because the role of a Scrum Master is a unique and HUMBLE role that is hard to 'master'.  You coach, you lead, you guide the team towards success, you help them to recognize and learn to mitigate risks.  You must work with your customers to help them understand not only how we work, but how to learn to "barter" and how to smooth them over if they are upset. Dont forget, you do become a key part of keeping your team's morale afloat with whatever means you can. And the process starts fresh with each new employee the company onboards.  This day to day work that you tirelessly do is rarely recognized because it is a constant job of countless SMALL 'tasks', observations, feedback, coaching, encouragement, issue resolution and prevention, foresight and steering, team conflict resolution, and support to the team reaching their goals for the sprint.  There is no Big Splash that draws attention to the effort being undertaken. 

However, if there is a problem...  you know you'll be visited soon.  :) 

Hence, "The Humble Scrum Goat" title - which I proudly wear!

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