David Bulkin

Contat via Email: [email protected]

Bio

I am a Managing Director of Training services at Grow-Lean LLC, which helps individuals, teams, and organizations apply agile and lean methods to grow capability, while reducing complexity, bureaucracy, and burden. I deliver agile training and coaching. I have helped many thousands of people journey from plan driven to adaptive methods, training over 20,000 people on agile and coaching hundreds more.

I am known for high energy, never boring, practical, fun, training and coaching. I have 35 years' experience delivering software and systems applying agile methods for 18 years across the entire value stream from strategy and product ideation to development and support. 

I was previously an agile editor at InfoQ (www.infoQ.com), and I have spoken frequently at major agile conferences including the Scrum Gathering, Agile 20xx, etc. I was an independent reviewer of the Project Management Institute's body of knowledge for agile. 

From 2009 to the end of 2014 I was a Vice President and Head of Training Services for LitheSpeed.

From 2008 through 2011, I was on the Board of Directors at the Center for Program Transformation (changing the way the US Government gets' IT done). While I was there, I prepared testimony that was presented in a United States Senate Hearing. In addition, I aslo contributed to writing of federal legislation on IT acquisition. This legislation was a piece of the puzzle that helped pave the way for agile approaches on government projects.

From 1999 to 2004, I was a VP at JP Morgan Chase where I managed a successful eBanking transition to agile, using Extreme Programming (XP), which is essentially Scrum plus engineering principles. Our coach was Kent Beck, the creator of XP. I trained/coached teams on agile methods and on simplification of processes to remove process burden.

In the 1990’s, I was a member of the Software Program Managers Network (SPMN), a Department of Navy Tri Service initiative, where I identified proven software practices and conveyed them to managers of large-scale DoD system acquisition programs.

Earlier in the 1990’s, I built an electronic commerce startup into a leading provider of catalogs and directories on the web, creating Web eCommerce sites starting in 1993. Early in my career, I was a developer at Siemens Medical Systems and Senior Developer at Digital Systems Group.

I have either created, or significantly improved over a hundred systems. I have written hundreds of thousands lines of code, thousands of test cases, created embedded systems, improved business processes. Additionally, I  built companies from the ground up, and worked at companies large (Fortune 50) and small (first person at Internet startup). This diverse experience allows me to deliver reality-based training based on actual experience, not theory!

My Passion

Helping teams apply Scrum and agile variants (Lean, Kanban, SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale etc.), along with DevOps Principles, to progress from average to good, and good to great.

Workshops I Deliver

I deliver Certified ScrumMaster®, Certified Product Owner®, Advanced Certified ScrumMaster®, PMI-ACP Prep, Executive Agile Training, Agile Team Workshop, Agile Requirements Workshops, Kanban + Scrum, and other customized sessions. Many trainers have historically focus exclusively on CSM as I believe true success with Scrum comes from collaboration across role and function, so I train and coach across disciplines.

Why Should You Attend a Session of Mine?

I have a passion and energy that carry through in my workshops. Each workshop combines hands on exercises, discussion, games and quizzes that will keep you engaged. My training is reality based, not theoretical. Although my training will help you pass the exam and get a certification: more importantly, it will better position you and your teams for success in advancing the use of agile methods.