Michael James

"Exactly as you said. The best class in NYC. Thank you so much."
-- a 2016 public CSM participant

Michael James, Seattle's Scrum expert (who travels too much) was selected as a Scrum Trainer in 2006 by Scrum's original proponent, Ken Schwaber.  Michael has helped countless organizations in many countries, garnering over one hundred written recommendations on his LinkedIn profile.  He has created the world's most popular online learning resource for Scrum (https://ScrumTrainingSeries.com), the most successful illustrated distillation of Scrum's definition (https://ScrumReferenceCard.com), and the most quoted scope declarations of the Scrum Master role (https://ScrumMasterChecklist.org, referenced in books by at least four other Agile authors).

Michael is a software process mentor, team coach, and Scrum Trainer with skills in Product Ownership (business), Scrum Mastery (facilitation), and the development team engineering practices (TDD, refactoring, continuous integration, pair programming) that allow Scrum to work. Michael has been involved with LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) longer than anyone else on the West Coast. He is a recovering "software architect" with programming experience back to the late 1970s, and including control systems for aircraft and spacecraft -- some of the most deterministic, high-quality systems ever built. If you have been an airline passenger, you have probably already used Michael's software. Michael's automated test experience predates the "eXtreme Programming" movement. 

Volunteers have found Michael's work useful enough to translate into simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, Polish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Turkish. Unauthorized (pirated) versions of his work also keep turning up.

Michael has been featured in DZone, SDTimes, Gantthead, and Better Software Magazine.  He teaches fewer public courses than other trainers because he is in high demand by private companies. He also leans toward harder than average classes, with activities rather than lectures and slides.

Testimonials:

"Thank you again for the excellent class. It was definitely one of the best courses I have ever attended, and I do believe that your effort to stay away from slides as much as possible and do more with handouts and exercises is a brilliant move. I honestly did not feel the absence of the quintessential and so pervasive ppt at all! And I know it made the class better."
-- Christian Molnar, Microsoft, Bellevue WA (USA)

"Many aspects of Scrum I have observed in the past, but never fully understood the process and theory until now."
-- Tim Duzmal, SDET lead, Seattle WA (USA)

"a fluid uninterrupted learning experience.... interesting, high value training"
-- Richard de Koning, Professor, Amsterdam NL

"Great implementation stories!"
-- Bart Matthaei, Managing Director, Amsterdam NL

"very good, good balance between theory and practice.  Liked it very much"
-- Francois Ruiter, Director Product Strategy / Product Management, Amsterdam NL

"Great communicator, very clear"
-- Jelle van den Berg, Owner of Ambero Software, Amsterdam NL

"Great coach and trainer.  My poor level of english wasn't a big problem with understanding because of trainer's clearity of speaking."
-- Michał; Jurkiewicz, ScrumMaster, Krakow Poland

"Michael should wear a hat at least when entering the room for the first time."
-- Pawel Lesnikowski, senior software developer, Krakow Poland

"high usage of 'visible' techniques to visualize ideas.  post-its, hanging papers, ..."
-- Piotr Nablielec, software engineer, Krakow Poland

"Scrum continues to exceed my expectations; A colleague recommended this course to me and I shall in turn recommend to others -- thanks!"
-- Chris St. John, Director, Cambridge UK

"Very knowledgeable & experienced presenter bringing discussion to the audience."
-- David Noyes, lead software engineer, Cambridge UK

"The course really helped me to identify the areas that I am not working to 100% on.  Organisational impediments was the main area."
-- Dave Semmens, ScrumMaster/Project Manager, Sheffield UK

"Thanks for the refresher, Michael. It was good to hear you again.   I was in your ScrumMaster course, September 2007-ish. Scrum has revolutionized how our team works and we're loving it.   Thank you."
-- Alan Bell, London UK